


lion viper dragon

by CountessKlair



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adaar Twins, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Twins, Angst, Chant of Light (Dragon Age), Established Relationship, Eventual Smut, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone is friends, F/F, Fluff, Halamshiral (Dragon Age), Hurt/Comfort, Letters, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Minor Dagna/Sera (Dragon Age), Multi, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Poly Relationships, Prophetic Visions, Vignette, also indoor plumbing, basically these are the cutscenes lmao, because I said so, because come on assholes this is a magic fantasy land get off my dick, boys and girls being soft, but make it painful, except i guess for tevinter because they suck toes, im not touch starved youre touch starved, improper use of fictional geography, improper use of fictional languages, like way too much sorry, listen gay and trans people are normal and cool in this so fucking fight me bitch, or a series of them, sleepy inquisition is the best inquisition, they sleep a lot for some reason, warning: slightly gory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22820494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountessKlair/pseuds/CountessKlair
Summary: Asala and Asaaranda Adaar had no idea that Shokrakar taking that job for the divine would wind up landing the twins in the middle of a heretical Inquisition, much less give Asala a weird glowing hand and Asaaranda weird glowing eyes.(follows the story of the game, plus or minus a few changes, because bioware is a bunch of COWARDS, and also because the Warden and Hawke weren't in it enough)
Relationships: Alistair/Male Warden (Dragon Age), Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi/Iron Bull, Female Adaar/Josephine Montilyet/Cassandra Pentaghast, Fenris/Male Hawke, Lace Harding/Female Lavellan, Male Adaar/Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. bas saarebas

**Author's Note:**

> im very sorry but this is first person because its the only one i understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asala POV

My limbs ached, a dull throb echoing through my very bones, like after Shokrakar had sent a few of us on that ‘minor’ protection detail that wound up being just me, Asaaranada and the Ashaads leading three foppish University scholars through darkspawn infested woods for a week. At least after this job she’d led us to, some extra security for the Divine, we’d gotten a real bed.

Wait.

I bolted straight up into a sitting position in that ‘real bed’ as memories came flooding back to me. Falling, tumbling, pain, screaming, fighting, the flash of a shield emblazoned with an eye, a throaty chuckle, the confident call of a spell I didn’t know. A sickly green glow.

The Conclave.

The Divine.

The Breach.

I looked around the room, searching for the guards that would surely be watching me. It was already somewhat astonishing that I wasn’t in a jail cell, since I’d been certain that’s where I’d be thrown once Cassandra-that was her name right, the Seeker of Truth? Or maybe ex-Seeker?-had no further need of the Mark on my hand.

There were no guards visible, which was unsettling. It was just a quaint, one-room wooden home, littered with medical herbs and half-finished salves and potions, like whatever doctor had been here had been called away in the middle of adding ingredients. The small fireplace was happily roaring, the furs on the bed clean, if thin. All in all, it was a much nicer resting place than I’d seen in years.

Which made the question of how I’d gotten there even more important. Had Asaaranda-?

A sudden, unbearable lash of pain in my chest punched through me, leaving me to lean over my knees and try not to empty my stomach as I remembered what Cassandra and the red-haired woman with her, Leliana, had told me. I was the only survivor from inside the Temple. And the last thing I did remember before everything disappeared in a putrid green blur was Asaaranda walking the Temple with me. So if I had been the only survivor, that meant.

That meant my sister was dead.

I buried my face in my hands, forgetting about the Mark, and blinded myself with it. Wincing, I took a closer look at the simmering thing, putting thoughts of my sister out of my mind so I didn’t spiral into darkness. 

The Mark almost looked like the wound Kayach got that time they were hit with an arrow that just passed clean through their side, an open and unhealed puncture wound. But instead of the inner workings of muscle and veins that I was unfortunately familiar with, there was nothing inside of the ‘hole’ other than that shifting, seething, sickly green glow.

A Mark that could seal rifts in the Fade. Because my life. 

The door to the cabin burst open, and for a moment I was sure that Cassandra had come back to claim my head, or maybe Shokrakar had come to get me out of trouble like she had so long ago.

But no. Neither of those people were the ones who entered the room. 

I knew that long white hair tied up in a horsetail, I’d etched the runes in those gold horn coverings, had forged them from scratch myself, and I knew every facet of that furious expression, had seen it every time I’d done something she didn’t agree with.

Where there had been green eyes before, ones that matched my own, now those eyes were a shocking, violent shade of violet.

“You’re dead.” I croaked out to the spitting image of my sister Asaaranda.

She huffed impatiently. “Not fucking likely.”

I stood from the bed, drinking in the sight of her. It was nice to see her again. Even if this meant she was a Revenant. Or a ghost or a wraith or-

The smaller but no less intimidating figure of Cassandra appeared from behind the most likely demonized form of my sister, and Cassandra gave me a once over before saying, “It appears I was too hasty when I said that you were the only survivor in the Temple. She is no more corrupted by demons than yourself.”

“But-” I started to say.

“I’m _me,_ shithead.” Asaaranda spat, crossing her arms tight over her chest. “Quit giving me that look like you’re expecting me to...I don’t know, burst out in demons.”

“She, Cassandra said there were no survivors in the Temple.” I managed.

Asaaranda’s expression twisted, something pained. “There wasn’t. I’m a special case, I guess. Like you.”

She nodded at my hand, and I looked back at her eyes, trying to figure out what she meant. Then I remembered how Cassandra had said I’d been found.

“Wait, were you...in the Fade too?” I asked.

“Apparently,” Asaaranda sighed. “I fell out when you had to open that big rift over the Temple. You were half dead when I came to, and…”

Asaaranda trailed off, and I just stood there, looking at her. This...was a lot to process.

Looking between the two of us, Cassandra said in a somewhat softer tone, “I will leave the two of you to talk. There is much you need to know. When you are ready, meet me in the Chantry.”

Without another word, she took her leave.

I wondered idly if the Chantry would just chop my head off where I stood or if they’d bother to take me all the way to Val Royeaux for a ‘trial’.

The door swung shut behind Cassandra, and Asaaranda commented, “She and Shokrakar would get along like a house fire.”

“Or. You know. Kill each other,” I said, and Asaaranda huffed a weak laugh.

Asaaranda rubbed at her temples, a personal tic she usually indulged when she was uneasy, but her voice was level and calm when she said, “Look. I promise I’m not poisoned or possessed, but we really need to get the need to know updates out of the way. It’s...there’s a lot of bad shit going on. And you and me are in the fucking thick of it, kiddo.”

She met my gaze head-on. Her eyes were a different color but they were still the same eyes, almost identical to my own. The same curled horns, ice-white hair, squared and blade sharp features.

At that moment, I knew that any test I might’ve run on her would’ve come back negative for possession or deception. She was my sister. Changed, but still my sister. Alive. I wasn’t in the habit of turning gifts like this away.

I sat back down on the bed and motioned to the rickety wooden chair at the cluttered desk across from me. “I’m listening.”

-_-_-_-_-

I’d been asleep for three days.

The Breach wasn’t closed, but apparently, Cassandra had decided that I shouldn’t be killed, that I was innocent. Which was nice, if surprising. 

The people of Haven were calling me the Herald of Andraste, and Asaaranda the Prophet of Andraste. The same female figure seen behind me as I’d fallen out of the Fade had reappeared when Asaaranda had come back.

Asaaranda had no memory of what happened to me in the Temple, she said that we’d split up to search down adjoining hallways, and less than sixty seconds later? Boom.

She’d fallen into the Fade and now Asaaranda had nightmares so bad she could barely sleep. When she did, she was plagued with dreams of dark shadows, voices chanting in ancient foreign languages, or sometimes there was a clear and unbroken picture of something happening. Templars murdering a mage, a mage binding a demon or succumbing to blood magic, bandits in the Hinterlands and red lyrium against a snowy mountain. And apparently, they were all true. 

“That elven apostate, Solas? He thinks I can see the future.” Asaaranda said dryly, picking at the lint on the furs covering the bed. “And honestly...well. It’s not that I think he’s wrong, because. He’s not. Every report Leliana’s gotten from her people has said exactly what I’ve seen.”

Maker. Fucking hell.

I studied Asaaranda’s face in the silence that widened between us. There were deep, dark circles under her eyes, a slump to her shoulders I knew well was exhaustion. Her hands, beyond the fidgeting that was rare enough on its own, trembled slightly.

“Are you ok?” I finally asked, keeping my voice low.

“Eh.” Asaaranda shrugged, trying to play it off, most likely so I wouldn’t worry. “The headaches are awful and I’m sleeping like shit but at least there’s the possibility that some good can come of it. We need intelligence on who the fuck blew up the Temple, and if Solas and I can figure out how to direct these little nightmares, we’re made.”

Before I could press her about any of that, she pointed at my hand with the mark, her eyebrows drawn in tightly, mouth a hard line. “That thing though? Is gone as soon as we get that big rip in the sky closed. I don’t know how it got on your hand, but I don’t like it. Looking at it...you can feel it’s not meant to be a good thing, can’t you?”

I nodded, slowly. The ill intent of it was visible just in the festering color. And now it was embedded in my very skin, and I had no clue how to get it off.

Asaaranda scooted closer to hold my other hand, pressing her forehead to mine. “It’ll be ok. We’ll figure this out.”

I let out a long breath, trying not to cry, in relief, in fear, in the upheaval of everything our lives had been up till now. I simply sat there and took comfort in Asaaranda’s presence.

Beyond a doubt, this was my sister. Changed but untainted. Still comforting me, still promising to protect me. Still saying everything would be ok, we’d figure it out, same as she had since our parents died. My overprotective worrywart big sister.

I wasn’t sure if any god, the Maker or Andraste or one of the Avaar deities or even an Elvhen god was actually responsible for this boon, but I wordlessly sent a word of prayer of thanks out into the world. Willed it to find whoever was responsible for keeping my sister alive. 

“We’re gonna stay and help them, right?” I finally asked, backing up from our comforting embrace.

“Who, the Chantry?” Asaaranda asked, face screwed up in distaste.

“No,” I huffed. “Cassandra and Leliana. They were, if Varric is to be believed and honestly I think he is, the Right and Left hands of the Divine. If we’re gonna clear our names and fix that hole in the sky, we can do it with them, right?”

Asaaranda studied me. Carefully.

Then a slow smile broke across her face. “You can be such a big-hearted softie sometimes.”

“Asaaranda...” I whined.

She knocked our foreheads together gently, our horn coverings clinking, a sign of solidarity we were both fond of. “Yeah. I think we’re gonna stay and help them out.”

Same Asaaranda. Despite everything that had ever happened in our lives, Asaaranda had always been dependable. My big sister, ready, willing and able to follow my conscience into battle, just like always.

A loud pop came from the wood in the fireplace and Asaaranda pulled away, standing and stretching. “We should probably head to the Chantry. I can’t wait to see the look on your face when you meet Cullen. He’s just your type.”

“My type?” I asked as I shoved my boots on, frowning at her. 

“Yeah,” Asaaranda grinned as she swung out the door. “A blonde human. Just like that guy Ashaad Two found you making out with in Lothering. Remember? You were supposed to be exploring the city with Ferra and instead, you were exploring with your-”

“Asaaranda!”

-_-_-_-_-

“Help us fix this,” Cassandra said solemnly, holding out her hand, her fierce eyes fixed on mine. “before it’s too late.”

There was no hesitation when I took her hand and gave it a firm, but gentle enough, shake.

As I released her hand, Josephine’s deceptively shrewd eyes captured mine. “It is good that you join us of your own free will. However, there remains...a question that we might ask of you and your sister.”

I waited for Josephine to continue, but she let the comment stand. Neither Cassandra, Cullen, nor Asaaranda seemed to know whatever question she was referencing, or if they did none of them said anything.

“A question?” I prompted.

“Yes,” Josephine said slowly, weighing her words carefully. “One of your...emotional equilibrium.”

The room was silent.

“What?” I asked.

“Asala,” Asaaranda drawled from the corner where she was leaning against the wall. “She’s politely asking if we’re going to go insane and start eating people and stringing children up by their toes simply because we’re Tal-Vashoth.”

“I beg your pardon!” I exclaimed, looking back at Josephine.

Josephine huffed at my sister and lifted a hand placatingly at us both. “I assure you I mean no offense, but-”

“But generally,” Asaaranda interrupted in that tone of hers that wasn’t necessarily disapproving but one wrong move and it would be dangerously so, “Tal-Vashoth Qunari are blood-thirsty, violent savages and no better than beasts.”

“Asaaranda,” I said warningly, before she could work herself up into an indignant lather. The two of us were in enough hot water as it was, and I didn’t want to jeopardize our freedom over human prejudice.

She met my gaze, and though her eyes were fierce at first, the fight drained out of them the longer she studied me. Asaaranda knew the position we were in, knew our words would have to be selected more carefully than theirs. Finally, she lowered her eyes and let out a long breath, tension easing from her shoulders. “I know. I apologize, Lady Josephine. However, I would gently inform you that such assumptions are incredibly derogatory and mostly propaganda, only true to an extent in certain situations and environments.”

“To answer your question, Lady Josephine,” I interrupted, “the short answer is no. No Tal-Vashoth is more likely to go insane than another. We’ve never lived under the Qun or in Qunari homelands, our parents taught us to mind our manners and tempers well.” 

“Oh,” Josephine said simply.

“To go further into detail,” I met Josephine’s gaze and cracked a small smile to ease her discomfort, “it’s actually quite simple to keep the fabled Qunari rage in check.” 

“Oh?” Leliana asked, eyebrow raised.

“Companionship. Intimacy with those you trust.” Asaaranda answered, winking at me.

“Little things, really. Proper communication, open affection with your family. Blood relations or those chosen.” I shrugged.

Asaaranda reached out to gently shove at my horns. “Asala’s big on hugging people. Which is good, cause his hugs are great.”

“Asaaranda,” I said, pleading.

The four humans in the room stared at us, blinking in shock. I was considering snapping my fingers to try to wake them from their stupor when Josephine shook herself out of it enough to start talking.

“It’s that simple?” Josephine asked, blinking.

I shrugged. “Yeah. Like I said, we’ve never known my other life but. We know enough to know certain things. Under the Qun, everything you do, everything you say and think and feel is controlled and monitored. There’s an underlying threat of fast and vicious retaliation for the slightest of infractions. That ever-present danger and threat, the inherent trauma of causes leads to uncontrollable violence being, unconsciously, generally the only thing a recent deserter of the Qun knows.”

“But,” Asaaranda said brightly, “you have no danger of that from us. Our emotional and mental stability is as solid as possible, given current events.”

Leliana smiled, unexpectedly bright and pretty against the hooded figure she made in the shadows. “Amen to that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bas saarebas is Qunlat for 'dangerous thing', denotes a non-Qunari mage.


	2. benefits of elfroot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockingly, Cassandra actually likes the Adaar twins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra POV

Things had always changed very quickly day to day when I was still a Seeker. One day you could be tracking down rumors of apostate children in the wilds, the next you could be up to your elbows in darkspawn with Grey Wardens who left as soon as they came. 

My relationship with change had always been complicated. When I was young I’d resisted what others had tried to change in me, even as I desperately sought change in other ways. Dreams of being a dragon hunter, then a Templar, then a Seeker…

All an escape from the gilded cage my uncle tried to keep safe on display, next to his creepy child corpse.

There was no escape to be had this time, even if I was weak and cowardly enough to seek one. 

Even if a small part of me wished for an escape from this nightmare where so many were dead so quickly, such chaos running rampant, such fear and pain being sown in the world. 

I had to remind myself, not for the first time, that things were not as hopeless as they could have been.

The Breach had stopped growing, thank the Maker, but it was still a threat. Thedas was in chaos, between the civil war in Orlais and the warring mages and Templars. And now, bandits, surprisingly well-supplied bandits who attacked in set but strange patterns were harassing the refugees in the Hinterlands.

Mother Giselle had refused to leave the Crossroads until the refugee’s plight had been eased, and even as I had opened my mouth to try to persuade her otherwise, Asala had immediately asked what we could do to help.

It gave me no pleasure to see, once more, that I was wrong in my first estimation of his character. His sister’s as well.

Asala and Asaaranda were two parts of a whole, like many close siblings, and part of me ached for Antony when I watched the two of them talk and interact.

They were both large and muscular and fearsome in battle, and therefore easy to mistake at first glance for just any other Qunari. But as I watched them, as we spent these weeks together in the Hinterlands, I saw a different side to them entirely.

“Are you sure that you know what you’re doing?” I asked Asala quietly.

He looked up from where he was crouched at an injured man’s feet, laying out some bandages. 

“I know enough to help some of them,” he said. 

He and his sister both had the same Ferelden accent as Cullen, though Asala’s voice was much deeper and rougher. 

Asala shook out a clean bandage before, with great care, he lifted the man’s leg to wrap the wound. “I’m no healer, certainly not anything like Ina, the healer in my old mercenary company, but…”

Asala paused for a moment, a fleeting pain crossing over his face. “Um. Well. Anyway, you get hurt enough you start having to bind your own wounds. You learn.”

“I find it hard to believe your sister did not insist on caring for your wounds,” I said dryly, and Asala laughed.

Asala and Asaaranda were both protective of each other, like any siblings in blood or war, but there was something fascinating to me about the way they behaved after a fight. They’d check one another’s wounds and tend to them, Asaaranda leaving a fond, though violent trail of curse words in her wake and almost always taking charge of wound-tending. It had reinforced the dynamic that had been clear to me from the first day I’d watched them both in the Chantry at Haven. Asaaranda had likely been more of a caregiver than a sister to her slightly younger twin in their youth, even if Asala was the softer-hearted of the two.

Asala, huge hands still gentle on the injured man’s wound, said lightly, “I got hurt a lot as a kid. Got in fights that weren’t mine. Asaaranda got tired of it and told me she wasn’t going to help me with the wound care anymore.”

“You got into fights?” Varric asked, incredulous. “You? I’ve heard humans spit vitriol at you when you’re pulling them from a burning building and you don’t even bat an eye.”

“I do find it hard to believe that you were the one getting into fights as a child,” I added.

Asaaranda popped up near my shoulder, leaning down to get more elfroot out to the bag by my feet, her long white hair sliding over her shoulder as she snorted, “Seeker, of the two of us, I’m not the one who goes looking for trouble.”

“I never go looking for it,” Asala started, his tone like it was an old argument.

“And yet it always finds you.” Asaaranda countered, the response sounding like a familiar one to the topic at hand as she straightened. She gently pressed her knuckles to her brother's cheek in a soft excuse of a shove.

Varric chuckled at them, turning back to sorting through the herbs we’d gathered or stolen from the apostate caches.

Asaaranda looked over at me, her arresting gaze looking me over toe to head. I ignored the slight shiver in my spine when her eyes finally met mine. 

“How’re you?” Asaaranda asked.

“Me?” I managed.

“Yes. You got thrown back hard in that last fight on the way here, and you said you were fine, but in all the time we’ve spent traipsing all over these hills, I’ve never known you to sit still this long.” Asaaranda frowned at my left ankle, accurately guessing that it was troubling me.

“I will manage,” I stated firmly.

Asaaranda’s mouth twitched. “You want to play the hero? Keep in mind that Asala went through a phase where he refused to let me wrap his scraped knees because he thought scars were cool. If I could wrestle him into submission then when I wasn’t even a third of the size I am now, I can do the same with you.”

That same irritating shiver at my spine threatened to derail me from my outrage. “You wouldn’t dare.

Asaaranda smiled wide at me. “Probably not, but the look on your face was cute.”

“Ugh,” I said, looking away, determined not to blush.

“Come on,” Asaaranda said, moving to her knees. “Let me take a look. You might hurt yourself worse if you don’t let someone see it.”

For a few long moments, I didn’t move.

Asaaranda just kept looking at me. Her eyes were such a rich, vibrant purple, different shades of the same color mixing like monochromatic stained glass. Then, so soft I was almost positive only I could hear her, Asaaranda whispered, “Let me take care of you, Cass.”

And. Well.

I huffed sharply. “Fine.”

I sat on the ground and reached for my boot. As I untied my laces, I asked, “So why the fights?”

“Hm?” Asaaranda’s brow creased momentarily in confusion before clearing. “Oh, Asala! Well, you know how he is. Big softie. He never could stand by and let someone hurt someone else when he could step in. Even if it meant they hurt him worse than they would’ve hurt the previous victim.”

“I could take it then, and I can take it now,” Asala said lightly.

Asaaranda rolled her eyes, but an old fear was etched in the way her forehead creased. I wondered how many times she’d worried he might not, in fact, be able to take this fight.

Chances were that none of us could.

But I did respect that they were still going to try. 

Actually, I admired that.

My ankle was swollen but thankfully not bruised, though the blood in the area throbbed hotly. I’d had enough injuries in my time as a warrior to know what kind of pain required what kind of attention. This was just a minor sprain.

Asaaranda’s fingers gently trailed over the skin as she muttered to herself. Her long hair slipped over her shoulder again when she leaned over me to get some cloth strips, and I watched the silken length glint in the strong sunlight. There were a few minuscule braids in a pattern I had no recognition of sprinkled in the horsetail she kept it all bound by. Braids that Asala also wore, if in a different fashion. Where Asaaranda always tied her hair up, Asala wore his mostly loose.

“Cassandra.” Asaaranda called.

I blinked, meeting her gaze. She’d obviously called my name a couple of times.

“Yes?” I said cooly.

Asaaranda twitched an eyebrow but didn’t comment. “I’m going to wrap this. Alright?”

My ankle didn’t need it, but…

Asaaranda’s fingers traced idle patterns on my skin as she waited for my answer. Her touch was soft and cool, and...well it wouldn’t hurt to let her wrap it.

I gestured to my ankle. “Be my guest.”

The smile she gave me when I accepted caused another too-pleasant shiver in my spine.


	3. atrast vala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric feels like he's been here before. The company is different, as is the scenery. But all the same, he's getting kinda tired of being ass-deep in demons all the time. At least the company he's got right now is pretty ok.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Varric POV

The camp we’d made was somewhat quiet as we all went about our now familiar nightly routines. It’d only been a month and a few days since the Conclave, but through constant companionship and quite literally saving each other’s asses in battle with rogue Templars and apostates mad with blood magic, the five of us had gotten kind of close.

In different ways though, if I was right about the calf-eyed looks passing between Asaaranda and Cassandra. Not that I was gonna say anything about it, I wanted to live long enough to go back to Kirkwall and die among familiar threats at the very least.

I settled further into my bedroll, looking up at the stars. 

There was something achingly, painfully familiar about all of this. It hadn’t been too long since I’d been doing this in different company. 

The now well-known pain of missing Hawke lanced through my heart. 

_Please let him be safe. Broody too. And Daisy, and Hawke Jr, and Aveline. And Isabela, wherever she is._

I wasn’t sure whether or not Andraste or the Maker ever listened to my prayers, but as far away as I was from those I considered family, this was all I could do to be close to them, protect them.

My melancholy thoughts were broken by Asala asking cautiously, “Solas?”

There was a shuffle as the elf turned on his side to face the other mage. “Yes?”

“Can I ask you something about the Fade?” 

I was at the perfect angle to see the smile that broke the gloom on Solas’ face as he nodded, and Asala dove right into his customary routine of endless questions that went further and further from sounding like real words as he and Solas and Asaaranda discussed magic and the Fade and Solas’ wanderings.

It was just something that Asala did. He asked questions, with absolutely everyone about absolutely everything. He rarely, if ever, gave a solid opinion to anyone about anything without having all the facts he could, and more facts besides. The kid craved information like a plant craved sunlight. 

“Huh,” I breathed to myself. Sunshine fit him. Asala was bright and cheerful and so kind it hurt to watch. Asaaranda reflected that, in a different way, with a touch of something dark around the edges that she embraced yet somehow never dulled her shine. Like…

“Hey, Moonshine,” I called.

All eyes turned to me and I met Asaaranda’s purple gaze. “You know him better than the rest of us. Has he ever not had a question?”

Asaaranda laughed. “No, never.”

“I think it’s an admirable quality,” Solas began, voice a little frigid.

“Take it easy, Chuckles, I think it’s nice. Too many people nowadays don’t ask enough questions.” I said.

Solas’ face relaxed again. “Oh.”

Asala was blushing slightly. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“Not at all.” 

“No.”

“Of course not.”

Solas, Cassandra and I answered similarly, and Asala nodded, letting a moment pass before asking, “Wait, if Asaaranda is ‘moonshine’, what am I?”

“Sunshine.” I grinned.

Asaaranda laughed, startling a bird near us.

Solas mused, “As nicknames go, they fit.”

“Glad you approve, Chuckles.” I winked at him. 

Solas sighed and turned back to Asala, picking up his explanation where I’d cut him off.

I watched them talk, and I remembered when I’d first met Hawke. He’d been full of questions, too. Hawke hadn’t ever been as...well, eager as Asala, but there were definite similarities. 

That didn’t bring me comfort after the thought first crossed my mind. The things Hawke had been through, what people had done to him, what he’d been forced to do in the end…

Hawke was tired and beaten by the world. And I hated to think of the likely fate that awaited Asala and Asaaranda.

It might’ve been pessimistic but. This was holes in the sky and a desecrated Temple and a dead Divine and old magic that had never been seen before in the last ten lifetimes. This was the sort of mess that was awful right from the start, not even bothering to do anyone the courtesy of ramping up to awful. There were no heroes in this kind of story.

Asala laughed, bright and clear, at something Asaaranda had said, Cassandra joining him, Solas’ mouth twisting as he tried to fight a smile of his own, something faintly fond in his eyes.

I closed my eyes. It’d be nice to be wrong about ‘no heroes’, in fact, I was kind of already hoping I was.

I’d always been a sucker for underdog characters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> atrast vala is a formal Dwarven greeting literally meaning 'speak' or 'find your tongue'


	4. karataam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is why there aren't very many oracles or prophets running around. They die too quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asaaranda POV

“Morning Commander Cullen, Lady Josephine.” I smiled at them both as I came into the War Room.

Cullen’s greeting was less reserved and guarded now than it had been when we’d first met. Though considering when we first met, in the dungeons after I’d fallen out of the Fade, he’d been ready to draw his sword on me, almost glaring at me in mistrust and confusion and fear. Of course, the moment I’d awoken enough to register other people in the room had been when the very first Seeing fit had started. The purplespark of the unfortunately now familiar magic I’d been ‘gifted’ with in the Fade had obscured my vision and I’d lost consciousness for a solid four hours, apparently screaming into the floor in ancient Elvhen. 

Really it was a wonder that Solas had managed to convince them not to kill me at all. Another point in the elf’s favor, beyond his kindness and patience with both Asala and I.

Regardless of our first meeting, Cullen’s smile was reserved but warm, his posture easy and relaxed. No longer did he tense at my movements, his eyes no longer followed me in his uncertainty.

Josephine’s smile was just as sunny as it always had been as she also returned my greeting, though I noticed a tinge of a blush coloring her cheeks, similar to the one I’d seen tinting the Antivan’s cheeks the other day when Cassandra had saved Josephine from tripping over a loose stone in the floor by catching her and sweeping her into her arms. 

Interesting.

I looked between the two of them. “You said you had an urgent message for me?”

“Yes,” Cullen said, a frown now creasing his face. “Your old mercenary company, they sent a-”

“They’re alive?” I blurted.

“Apparently yes, but maybe not.” Leliana’s voice came from behind me as she lightly stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. 

I raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t Asala be here for this?”

Leliana and Asala had...had a disagreement over the handling of a traitor from within Leliana’s own people the other day, and I knew my brother still maintained the stance he’d taken, but he was desperate to mend the fence. I wondered if Leliana held a grudge.

A small smile quirked the corner of Leliana’s mouth. “I gave him a report before he went to work with Mother Giselle and the surgeons. He said to ask you what you thought.”

She was gently telling me without words that the two of them were fine, and I accepted that as her word. 

“Then what’s this about the Valo-Kas maybe or maybe not being dead?” I asked.

The three of them moved to familiar positions around the table, and I moved to follow them when that too-familiar wave of pain erupted in my skull. 

The edges of my vision blurred to purple-black, and then the makeshift War Room, Leliana, Josephine, Cullen, it all disappeared. All I could see were flashes of lives.

Halani, being ripped from Shokrakar’s arms by hands made of red lyrium.

Hissra and Katoh surrounded by men in plate armor, overwhelmed.

Kaariss’ poetry book burning up in a fireplace.

Taarlok and Sataa and Meraad dirty with caked blood, in chains and half dead in a dark room.

“Asaaranda!” Josephine’s voice cut through the haze of magic and agony.

“Asaaranda, listen to us.” Cassandra, her steady voice off-balance.

I fought through the quicksand of darkness, through the flitting images of a million people suffering in a million ways, a million individual nightmares. The noises and the whispers. The feeling of spiders crawling under my skin. 

I opened my eyes, choking on blood from where I’d bitten through my cheek. 

Again.

“Easy, you’re alright,” Cassandra said from where she knelt at my left, gently urging me up to sitting, her hands strong and steady.

A different set of hands, softer but still strong in a different way, running along my right arm, uncertain but still there. Josephine’s hands.

I blinked to clear the tears from my eyes, my head pounding in pain.

I looked up and met Leliana’s hard gaze from where she crouched near me, ready to spring into action. 

“Valo-Kas.” I managed, blood spilling from between my lips, my vision swirling as I forced myself to finish, “In trouble. In pain. Or, or maybe gonna be, I can’t, don’t know…”

My eyes rolled back in my head as a wave of pain-laced nausea swept through me, and only Cassandra and Josephine’s hands kept me upright.

“Trapped,” I gasped, blood pounding through every vein in my body, the hum of something larger speaking words I didn’t understand in my head, that sensation of spiders inside my flesh, dancing along the ribbons of my muscle multiplying. “Trapped somewhere, fuck-”

“Let me,”A new voice like a cool winter wind cut through the fog clouding everything around me except for the two pairs of hands.

“Solas,” I choked.

“I’m here. You will be alright.”

“Hurts.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” A hand equally as cool as his voice passed over my burning forehead. “Breathe, thunderstorm. Breathe through it.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks, blood pooling again in my mouth as I bit through my cheek when a fresh, harsher wave of pain washed over me like a tidal wave and my entire body clenched in response. That hum of something large speaking now laughed, the spiders under my skin writhed, and against my own volition my mouth opened and an otherworldly scream wrenched free from my lungs.

My world narrowed down to the noise, my skin, the scent of my own pooling blood.

One pair of hands on my left, solid, strong, and capable.

One pair of hands on my right, soft, strong, and clever.

One cool hand brushing tears away from under my eyes, keeping my head still.

And then I was lost to the purple-blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> karataam is Qunlat for Infantry Platoon


	5. arishock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for Asala to make his move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asala POV

“Use your shield, don’t just hold it like that!” Cullen called out at a recruit who was admittedly doing little more with his shield than holding it.

I crossed my arms over my chest, tucking chilled fingers into the fabric of my coat. “Even to my untrained eye, I can tell you’ve done a lot with them, Cullen.”

Cullen’s eyes darted up to meet mine, a slight wisp of a smile on his face. “Thank you, Herald. I-”

“Cullen, please.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “How many times do I have to ask you to just call me by my given name?”

Cullen was a stickler for formalities, something I assumed had been ingrained into him by the Templars. When I’d first attempted to ease the distrust I felt between us when we’d first met, he’d been so stiff and formal I’d ended up apologizing for speaking to him at all.

That had been almost five months ago, and while we had thankfully moved on from the typical sort of awkwardness between Qunari apostates and former Templars turned rebellious alliance military commanders, there were still times he held that formal tone with me.

“I’m sorry, Asala,” Cullen sighed, rubbing at his eyes, “Training.”

“So it is a Templar thing?” I asked.

He frowned at me, though he still kept half an eye on the sparring soldiers. “What is?”

“The formality.” I answered. “You and Cassandra are very big on titles, the whole chain of command, military procedure sort of thing.”

“Cassandra was a Seeker, not a Templar,” Cullen said.

I shrugged easily. “Similar enough. Your fighting styles are similar too.”

Cullen’s eyes narrowed at me, a smile fighting to be seen on his face. “Not this again.”

“It was a marvelous show, Commander, you cannot blame me for speaking of it so often,” I protested, grinning at him.

A month ago, Cassandra had managed to convince Cullen to join her for a sparring match, since she claimed she needed to practice something new on a living target, and she didn’t want to try it out in the field where it could backfire and get her killed.

Cullen had initially refused, saying he had a thousand things to do, but Cassandra wasn’t the type of person to take no for an answer, and within moments had led Cullen into the sparring ring.

It had been a well-matched display. The two of them were both skilled in battle, and watching it had been…

Entertaining.

Asaaranda had poked me and accused me of drooling over Cullen. Then she had made three very sexual jokes in succession about Cullen and a sword and threatened to tell him I was interested if I didn’t do anything about it myself.

She’d only left me alone when I’d threatened to talk to Josephine and Cassandra. 

Unfortunately, my sister was right, as usual. Which was irritating enough, and it wasn’t like I was going to tell her she was right. 

But I did like Cullen. He was handsome, sure, but that wasn’t what held my attention, caught my breath. I liked the way he led the Inquisition soldiers, the no-man-left-behind approach he took with everything, the honor and grace he held himself with.

After Varric had given an offhand comment about knowing Cullen in the past, I’d questioned him relentlessly, enough that I was almost certain Varric knew my intentions, but I’d wanted to know more about Cullen’s past, and I wasn’t sure if asking Cullen himself would be welcomed. And since everyone else seemed to know most of Cullen’s history...

Varric had said that Cullen had made mistakes in Kirkwall, and even if he’d done the right thing in the end, he seemed to be paying for those mistakes now. 

I could see that in him, too. Josephine and Leliana were constantly trying to drag him away from his office or his soldiers, urging him to eat something, and the exhaustion in his eyes was only outmatched with his determination. There was something else there as well, though. Sometimes early in the morning or late at night, he just looked like something had hollowed him out and he was trying to learn how to live and breathe again, maybe even for the first time. 

He was a capable leader, never tolerated bigotry in the ranks, cared deeply about every last one of his soldiers, and always had a kind word for someone, especially the servants it seemed, when they needed it. 

When it came down to it, I liked him, I was tired of Asaaranda’s meddling and teasing, and now I was trying to do something about it.

Cullen shook his head, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It was just a training exercise. I have to keep my skills sharp, too.”

I let a moment pass before I cautiously asked, “Would it be alright if I asked to hear more about Templars?”

“More?” Cullen looked back at me, eyebrow quirked. “What else is there to know?”

Now or never.

“You’ve never mentioned leaving anyone behind when you joined the Inquisition. And in the months I’ve known you, I’ve noticed that you very vehemently rebuff the... ” I trailed off while I searched for an appropriate word. “The more amorous attention of the ladies here at Haven.”

“Oh.” Cullen said dully.

He wasn’t looking at me anymore, and I knew I’d crossed a line.

Scrambling slightly, I blurted, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to pry-”

“No, no.” Cullen sighed. “Really, it’s not the worst way someone has asked me that.”

“Cullen,” I paused, biting my lip and waiting until he looked at me before continuing, “I was just wondering if Templars were allowed to - court or marry, I never intended to offend you-”

Cullen turned to face me fully, frowning heavily. “You didn’t. Really.”

The sounds of the sparring soldiers around us, the many other elements of the sounds of nature faded into the background.

Cullen, rubbing at his neck, sighing, “I suppose I do need to be more polite with my answers when they ask me, or it’s inevitable that everyone in the Inquisition will ask about it.”

We stood in silence for a bit, while Cullen frowned at the ground, gathering his thoughts. Patiently, I waited for him to speak.

Finally, Cullen lifted his head. “It’s not against the rules for Templars to marry, not really, but it isn’t terribly common that they do. So no, it’s not a Templar habit, it’s something...I chose.”

I nodded but didn’t speak. That new sprout of hope that had started growing since I’d started to hold dear in my heart began to fade even before Cullen started speaking again.

“I haven’t...that is, I...well…” Cullen gave many false starts before sighing deeply. “It hasn’t ever been a priority for me, after I joined the Templars. And then I...then I had to leave the Ferelden Circle, and Kirkwall was no place for romance, and now…”

Cullen’s eyes were watching me carefully as he said, slowly, “Now, I am. Not in a position to be in a relationship. With anyone.”

I nodded again, and still held my tongue, ignoring the drop of final hope in my stomach.

Cullen murmured, “I hope you understand.”

He didn’t have to spell it out for me in more words than that. I completely understood. I’d certainly been rejected in far harsher ways for much crueler reasons before.

And it wasn’t like it was a life or death necessity to have Cullen by my side in a romantic or sexual sense, it just…

It would have been nice. 

I smiled at him, quietly burying that glimmer of hope in my chest way down deep. “I can certainly understand that. As long as you and I can still play chess on an occasion, Commander. The practice is good for me.”

Cautiously, likely recognizing the out I’d given him and the return of formal titles to put us back on familiar ground, Cullen asked, “You call our chess games only practice?”

“Of course,” I said lightly as I started to back away from him, still smiling. “You certainly need a lot of practice when it comes to the game.”

I turned to go find my sister, smiling at the sound of Cullen’s laughter behind me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> arishock is Qunlat for the Qunari military commander


	6. salroka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric writes a letter to a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Varric POV, I guess, but this is a letter.

Dear Waffles and Broody the Elf,

Well, I’m still alive! Shocking, I know. Seven months here at Haven feels like two back in Kirkwall. It’s like I’m on vacation. An extended, very bloody vacation.

To answer the question I’m sure Fenris made you put into your last letter, no, I haven’t told anyone that I know where you are and no, I won’t. You’ve done your bit. ~~I’m not gonna let them~~

~~They can’t ask for more from~~

~~I won’t~~

It was good to hear you two are still alive. Though it was less good to hear about that other thing. Are you sure about Junior? He’s only been a Warden less than half a decade, he can’t possibly be hearing the Calling so soon, right?

Well, shit. 

Everything’s been ten kinds of crazy since shit blew up here, though, hasn’t it. We’re working on it, though. Keep me updated, ok? Or as updated as we can manage, smuggling letters back and forth like those assholes in romance books. Tell Broody not to glare too hard when he reads that, I’d never make a move on his man. Waffles, you lost out on me when you went for Broody back in Kirkwall. Ha ha.

Haven is a little cheerier now than it used to be. A little more crowded too, thanks to the twins. Sunshine, that’s Asala remember, has been rounding people up like cattle to the barn before a storm. You remember in my last letter I’d told you we’d recruited a Chantry mother before that absolute disaster at Val Royeaux, Mother Giselle? Well, she’s still with us, thank the Maker. She’s a good woman. Asked around, apparently she’s been blacklisted from moving up the ladder in the Chantry because she refuses to serve rich nobles their rations before starving refugees.

You’d like her.

But some new faces have gotten here as well. Let’s see. There’s Warden Blackwall, pretty much the last Grey Warden on the face of Thedas who we could find, apparently. Need to look into that. I think I’ve heard the name before, but I’m not entirely sure. He’s real quiet, brooding and gloomy. You know the type, Hawke, you married the prettier version.

We tracked down that Friends of Red Jenny character we heard about in Val Royeaux, too. Her name’s Sera and she’s the least elf-like elf I’ve ever seen. She and Broody would get along great killing nobles together. She hates magic more than Fenris did even at his least tolerant.

Oh, I think I forgot to tell you about it, but while we were in Val Royeaux, Sunshine got a message from Madame Vivienne, former First Enchanter of the Circle of Magi, Enchanter to the Imperial Court. She’s twice as scary as she sounds. She’s not the most progressive mage out there, and talking with her sometimes makes my head spin. But she’s twice as clever as she wants you to think, and it’s real good to have someone out here with us who can play the Game in Orlais. And we didn’t just get any player, we got the master of it.

She and Chuckles, the elf apostate, don’t get along very well. Or at all. Ever. So we’ll see if they end up killing each other. It may still happen.

We’ve also got another Qunari here now, name’s Iron Bull, and he runs the merc company Bull’s Chargers. He’s even bigger than Asala, probably as big as or even bigger than the Arishok’s we met in Kirkwall, and one of the first things he tells Asala while he’s trying to sell the kid on letting the Chargers into the Inquisition was that he, Iron Bull, is a fucking Ben-Hassrath spy.

Can you believe it?

Sunshine took him in, though. ~~Because he’s obviously dead set on having someone stab him in the back because he apparently can’t not trust someone poor kid’s gonna get himself killed I don’t understand~~

~~I worry about this kid so much sometimes what the fuck is he thinking just~~

Speaking of Sunshine and Moonshine, and that very poorly disguised question in your last letter about whether or not I like them.

Yeah. I do. Big ol’ stamp of approval.

I think they have a pretty good chance of fixing Blondie’s mess, at least.

They’re certainly nothing like the Qunari we knew in Kirkwall, either. Neither of them have mentioned the Qun or its’ prophet once except in derision, so I think it’s safe to assume they’re not brainwashed cultists hiding out disguised as Tal-Vashoth. Which is always good. 

And yes, I was being serious when I said that their method to counteract the typical Tal-Vashoth bloodlust was hugs. 

Once again, no, I was not kidding. 

It’s kind of nice, actually. He got drunk last week, which was my fault, honestly. I mean he’s a huge hulking Qunari, how was I to know that he’s such a lightweight? Anyway, I nearly died laughing when he hugged me and told me very seriously that he thought our dear Commander Cullen needed a hug, but since the Commander wasn’t there at the moment, he’d give me the hug to give to Cullen.

Moonshine, that’s Asaaranda remember, says he’s been sappy like that since birth. 

Oh, while I’m thinking about it, that ‘anonymous’ tip that a certain grumpy elf got to Moonshine? Thanks. Those soldiers that were captured in the Fallow Mire are all gonna be ok. Don’t even wanna know how or why Fenris was out there or just otherwise knew about it.

But back to the subject of our Commander Cullen, there’s really not much more to tell than I did in my last letter. He looks about the same as he did in Kirkwall, just pale and gaunt and exhausted and stressed. The other Templars here don’t look nearly as bad since we got our hands on a steady supply of lyrium. I don’t think he’s taking it anymore.

Damned brave of him. He’s changed a lot since Kirkwall, for the better in my opinion. Hasn’t even said one nasty or derogatory thing to Chuckles or the kids about them being apostates. 

We’re getting down to the wire here, having to decide to look for the Templars or the mages. My money’s on Asala going after Fiona and her rebel mages in Redcliffe. You didn’t see the look on his face when that slimy Tevinter magister slithered out of the woodwork. He knows something fucked up is going on at Redcliffe.

No matter what’s going on with the Templars and whatever stick they’ve got up their asses, I told about the Lord Seeker punching that Chantry Mother in broad fucking daylight, we can’t just let a magister run amok in Ferelden. 

Ignore the blood stain above this. I’m outside near the sparring ring, and Moonshine just broke Sunshine’s nose while they were training in hand-to-hand with Cullen and Cassandra. On accident, I think, even if she is laughing at her poor brother.

Some of the soldiers look like they aren't sure whether or not they’re supposed to leap to their Herald of Andraste’s defense, or if it’s ok for him to be hit if it’s the Prophet of Andraste doing the hitting.

Anyway, I don’t have enough paper to replace this one, so just ignore it, ok?

But like I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted, Sera and Iron Bull are pushing to go after the Templars, I think. Magic kinda freaks them both out a bit, and in Bull’s case, I think it mostly comes from living under all that brainwashing shit.

Not that he acts like he’s still considered a real Qunari. If he hadn’t told us about the whole Ben-Hassrath thing and Nightingale hadn’t confirmed it, I’d be sure he was Tal-Vashoth. He drinks and sloths and wenches (not just with people of the female gender and/or sex, either) to excess in ways I find truly impressive. In short, he acts nothing like the Qun ascribing spy he’s supposed to be.

He’s compromised, and I can see in his eyes that he knows it. Sometimes, the way he looks at his people, the Chargers, it’s like he can see how close is to losing all of them. Cause one day the management back in Par Vollen is gonna decide that the Chargers aren’t worth the cover they’re providing Bull. They’re gonna make him choose between the Chargers and the Qun, and I just know that it’d kill him to choose the Qun. 

I just hope when the time comes that the twins have his back, and he goes Tal-Vashoth for real.

But this letter is long enough already, and I’m rambling now. The next time I write, I hope it’s to tell you the Breach is closed and I’m headed home. Hope the next time I hear from you, Juniors all better and Broody managed to crack a smile for once. And that you’re still alive. That’d be nice.

Miss you, Hawke. Stay safe. Ok?

Love, Varric

P.S. Nightingale, if you do manage to find this letter somehow like I suspect you did with the last one, please keep it a secret for me like you did last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> salroka is Dwarven for friend


	7. somniari

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were a lot of reasons Asaaranda was sick to fucking death of prophecies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asaaranda POV

There were a lot of reasons I was sick to fucking death of prophecies.

One, I hated that since I lived in the time I did, most of the prophecies I had were filled to the brim with blood and death and fear.

Two, they really hurt.

Three, they weren’t exactly clear, about _anything,_ and the only time I ever gave confident and wholly accurate information about what I was seeing was when I was seizing in agony on the floor, screaming.

Four, they really fucking hurt.

The nightmares were preferable to the visions since they almost always occurred while I was already horizontal, and I almost never injured myself or someone else during one of them

Made for shitty sleeping though.

I blinked my eyes open, fighting the sluggish response due to the loud and insistent throbbing of pain pulsating in my skull.

Maker, I fucking hated this.

I tried to roll onto my side, get myself in a position to stand and go get a glass of water, but even the slightest movement made my head swim dangerously, my stomach lurching.

I settled back into the bed, resigning myself to stay there until it all passed.

Several long minutes passed while I floated in pain and nausea, cursing the thrice-damned fucking Fade and it’s idiotic fucking nonsense, until someone knocked sharply on the door to the cabin I shared with my brother, the sound reverberating through my skull in a thoroughly unpleasant way.

I groaned softly, hoping they’d just leave.

A few moments later, they knocked even louder. And then, Cassandra’s voice came through the door asking, “Seer Asaaranda, are you awake?”

My brain sloshing inside my skull, I mustered every fiber I could of my magic flitting like lightning sparks under my skin, enough to throw a book from my bedside table at the door, and made a decent thunk with it.

Immediately the door burst open, Cassandra calling out sharply, “Asaaranda?”

I groaned again, unable to even turn my head to look at her.

I heard the scrape of her sword being sheathed, and then Josephine’s concerned face popped into my limited range of vision.

“Josie.” I managed to croak.

“Hush,” Cassandra said, also leaning over me, checking my eyes, testing the warmth of my forehead, her fingers lingering on my face.

I hated how familiar the situation was. Someone finding me bedridden with the visions or the after-effects of them. I hated being this weak, this vulnerable. And yet around Josephine and Cassandra, it was more bearable. 

“Would you like to sit up?” Josephine asked, biting her lip.

I nodded as clearly as I dared, and the two of them gently, very gently helped me sit up against the wall.

Josephine perched beside me on the bed, fussing with the blankets, and Cassandra brought me a glass of water, steadied my hand enough for me to drink when I reached for it.

Cassandra’s voice was soft when she said, “We were, ahem, concerned when you didn’t show up to help with triage this morning.”

Josephine’s hand curled into my left one. “Asala is helping Mother Giselle, but we can go get him if you-”

I’d started shaking my head, immediately regretting it. “No, s’fine.”

Cassandra harrumphed disbelievingly.

Giving her a censuring look, Josephine asked, “May we stay with you, then? Until you feel better?”

“Sure you...want to?” I mumbled.

“Of course,” Cassandra said, settling into a chair she’d pulled from the desk in the entryway.

She picked up the book I’d thrown. “Ugh. Swords and Shield. You read this drivel?”

I cracked a smile, said, “Romantic,” and Josephine laughed.

Rolling her eyes, Cassandra sat back in her chair, opened the book, and started to read aloud.

Josephine’s hand remained in mine, and I knew I wasn’t imagining Josephine’s other hand coming to rest lightly on Cassandra’s knee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somniari is Elvhen for dreamer


	8. ebasit kata itwa-ost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've allied with the mages, and Magister Alexius is in chains, but Asala isn't handling what he's seen very well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asala POV

Asaaranda climbed off of her mount, still shooting me conspicuous, concerned looks. “Do you want me to-”

“I’ll be fine,” I said softly, handing my hart’s reins to a stableboy.

My hart gave me a parting nuzzle to my cheek as she was led away, but I couldn’t manage more than a grimace in response for her.

I was so fucking tired, but in spite of that and the late hour, I needed to give my report to Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine. I also needed to prepare them so they didn’t panic when an army of rebel mages came into the valley over the next week. Maker, they were going to panic when I told them about the alliance I’d fumbled my way through, halfway to falling apart the entire time, my only grounding factor that Asaaranda was alive, that Cassandra and Varric were safe and the world was still whole and everything was fine now. 

Keeping it that way was the problem. I’d seen what would happen if I didn’t. If I failed.

Asaaranda was still looking at me like she could see how fucked up I felt. She probably could. She always was good at seeing what I tried to hide from her. 

“Ok,” Asaaranda finally conceded. “We’ll meet you in the War Room.”

I could see Cassandra and Varric also frowning at me as they got down off of their mounts. I gave them my best attempt at a smile, but I could feel how brittle it looked.

Even looking at them all felt unreal after Redcliffe.

As I turned away, my eyes met Dorian’s. There was something behind that carefully curated mask that echoed what was screaming under my own skin. We were the only two who remembered what we’d seen. What the future held.

The moment passed, and I focused on where my tired feet were going. I was glad I was so familiar with the way to the War Room since I could turn my spinning brain off and just follow the path like second nature. I didn’t look up at the people still milling about. I wasn’t up to seeing the questions on their faces, of knowing how close I’d come to letting them all die in fire and pain, drowning in blood.

My throat threatened to close on me, and I stumbled slightly, remembering. Just seeing the entire sky covered by the Breach had been bad enough, the sick green too bright and still shadowed, pulsating in a beat that matched the burning pain in my left palm. The red lyrium covering every surface, bright blood red against the grime, a haunting, hissing song creeping from the living stone. 

But the rest had been even worse. 

Opening a door in the search for Alexius and finding the future version of Asaaranda dead, her corpse rotting on the cold floor of a decrepit bedroom, still protectively covering Connor’s body.

Seeing Cassandra’s strength fail, the fear and the overwhelming guilt in her eyes as she begged me for one more chance. Her lifeless body being flung into the throne room when the demons broke it back down.

Varric surrounded by the red lyrium that had stolen his brother from him, that he hated so much, but still able to laugh. Until he wasn’t. Until he was dead too, lying broken on the throne room floor, bleeding red lyrium.

I tried to push the images from my mind as I opened the door to the War Room. I had to focus. I couldn’t just fall apart.

“There you are!” Josephine exclaimed, and I forced myself to look at all of them.

Cullen’s shoulders eased when he saw me, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “We were beginning to wonder if you’d…”

Cullen trailed off as he took in my appearance, his smile fading to nothing, worry replacing it. “Asala, are you alright?”

I looked away from him, unable to answer him truthfully while looking at him, but then I saw Leliana. 

Leliana was the kind of person who drew your gaze, sometimes even against your will, if it was what she wanted. She held your gaze as long as she needed it. I didn’t look away, couldn’t, felt like shaking with the feeling of her seeing the cracks in my facade.

She stepped away from the dark corner she seemed to favor, one eyebrow arched and a wry but soft smile on her face. 

“Long day?” Leliana asked quietly. She was the perfect picture of nonchalance, her only tell was the faint concern in her eyes the longer she looked at me.

All I could think about was the future version of Leliana I’d met in that awful experience at Redcliffe. Her face sunken, the skin peeling off and a pallid grey, everything from her voice and demeanor to the way she fought now hard and unforgiving, rabid with rage and fury. But she’d still been Leliana, and I’d still had to watch, unable to move, unable to act as her body had been ripped and shredded by darkspawn claws. 

Her blue eyes wide in terror, staring at me even as the light faded from them.

And all I had done was stand and watch it happen.

“Asala?”

I was aware I was crying when I snapped back into focus, hot tears pouring down my face, my breath stuttering in my throat.

“Asala?” Leliana asked again, something softer, a vulnerable understanding in her eyes.

That was all it took.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed as I crossed the room in two quick strides and swept her up into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Leliana. I just - I need - please-”

“Shush,” Leliana cooed, her cool hands coming around me, her voice low but comforting in my ear as she hugged me back just as fiercely. “I’m here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ebasit kata itwa-ost is Qunlat for “It is ended you all have fallen”


	9. why must the shield of alamarr shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen wasn't prepared for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cullen POV

“There you are!” Josephine exclaimed.

I looked up from where I was frowning at the War Table, letting out a breath of relief at the sight of Asala, looking relatively unharmed, if obviously exhausted and dirty from traveling.

I ignored Leliana’s soft chuckle from my right, feeling her eyes on me.

Nosy spymaster always knew too much for her own good. Not that there was anything to know about my reaction to seeing Asala after all these days. I was just relieved to see him safe. That was all.

Asala looked up at us, and I fought the responding smile on my face as I started talking. “We were beginning to wonder if you’d…”

I lost track of my words when I finally got a good look at him in the light of the room. He looked…

Haunted.

The usual evident good humor was missing from his face, the easy confidence in his posture replaced by hunched shoulders and white-knuckled hands. His face was pale under the hematite color of his skin, every muscle in his body drawn in tight, and his eyes were just…

Maker, what had happened at Redcliffe?

I took a step towards him, my hand reflexively landing on the hilt of my sword like I could use it to do anything against whatever hung over him now. 

“Asala,” I asked slowly, “are you alright?”

He didn’t answer me, something like hurt crawling it’s way up to the light in Asala’s eyes, but then he looked away, somehow holding himself even tighter, like a spring about to snap.

Leliana pushed away from the wall, met Asala’s gaze and asked quietly, knowingly, “Long day?”

A long moment of silence passed, dawning horror and pain building on Asala’s face, his eyes shining with tears.

“Asala?” Leliana asked.

None of us dared move, not even when the tears started spilling over Asala’s cheeks, his hands trembling, his breath rattling and choking him.

“Asala?” Leliana asked again, but there was something different in her tone, now. Something I couldn’t see. 

That was when the dam broke.

“I’m sorry,” Asala sobbed, crossing the room in two quick strides to pull Leliana in for a crushing hug, his words nearly unrecognizable through his tears as he choked out, “I’m so sorry, Leliana. I just-I need-please-”

Leliana waved me off when I moved to do - something. She gave me a nasty look before she turned fully into Asala’s arms, wrapping her own as best as she could around the huge muscular expanse of Asala’s shoulders, turning her head into his neck to murmur something I couldn’t hear.

The door to the War Room opened again and I instinctively moved between Asala and the door, my hand once again going to rest on the hilt of my sword, going so far as to pull it slightly out of its scabbard.

“Don’t get too excited, now,” The newcomer protested when they, he actually, saw me and my admittedly overprotective stance.

It was Dorian, the Tevinter mage who’d offered his assistance at the start of this campaign to oust Magister Alexius from Redcliffe. Dorian looked much the same as he had before, his affected roguish grin still firmly in place, though he was obviously just as exhausted as Asala had looked, just as travel-worn, as battle-worn. 

Dorian’s eyes skipped over mine, landing over my shoulder where Asala and Leliana were, and I stiffened in response. It felt wrong to let a newcomer among us see Asala like this, in this state, in this room, where of all places in Thedas we were supposed to be able to keep him safe.

I was about to do something, ask that Dorian leave, maybe escort him out myself, when I watched that careful mask over Dorian’s face slip just enough. Enough that I saw an echo of something I’d seen just now in Asala’s eyes, and I froze in my tracks.

Dorian looked right back at me like that, caught turning away from Asala, expression exposed in that moment. Then, it passed, and the mask was firmly back in place as Dorian shifted, pulling his posture in closer, defensively.

“To be perfectly honest though, I am the kind of person to get excited over,” Dorian said loftily.

Before Josephine or I could do anything, like ask him what in the blazes was going on, for instance, Asaaranda came through the door as well. And behind her, Cassandra and Varric. None of them seemed surprised to see Asala in such distress behind me.

There was one long scrape along Asaaranda’s cheek, and Cassandra had a bruise to her jaw.

Josephine gave a small cry and immediately ran to them, her writing board crashing to the floor as she reached for their faces.

“I’m fine,” Asaaranda murmured, encircling Josephine’s wrist with her fingers, gently caressing the skin.

I might have imagined it, but I thought that Cassandra’s eyes slipped closed for a moment longer than strictly necessary to blink as Josephine cradled her face, and maybe even leaned into Josephine’s hand.

Varric rubbed at his eyes and winced at the movement, sighing deeply, like it came from his bones. “Guess you’ve got to give that report now, Sparkler.”

Dorian whipped his head around to face Varric. “Me?”

Varric cracked a small smile. “Yes, you.”

Asaaranda met my searching eyes, answer ready for me. “Redcliffe was a cluster fuck. We’re lucky we got out of there alive.”

I looked between them all, and then turned slightly to look at Asala, who was now sitting on the floor, still hugging Leliana close. His face was hidden in the crook of her neck, her fingers winding around strands of his snow-white hair while she hummed softly, soothing.

I looked back to Dorian, who’d followed my gaze and was staring at Asala with something sad and understanding in his eyes.

“Alright,” I said, and he looked back at me, vulnerable now in a way he hadn’t been when he first entered the room. Similar to how he’d looked when that careful facade he kept had slipped.

Keeping my voice a little lower than normal so as not to disturb Asala and Leliana, I continued, “Tell us what happened.”

Between Asaaranda and Dorian, the two of them filled the rest of us in on what had happened. Asaaranda’s eyes drifted to her brother often, especially when Dorian very quietly said they’d found the future version of Asaaranda’s dead body.

Asaaranda shushed Josephine gently when she’d made a soft noise at that, Josephine’s hands interlacing tightly with Asaaranda and Cassandra’s. 

I knew Leliana was listening to the entire report, and I hoped she and Josephine could make more sense of it than I could.

Time travel, magisters, ancient evil, red lyrium growing like elfroot, the Breach covering every inch of the sky, Tevinter extremists that apparently wouldn’t be welcomed even in the most traditional social circles of Tevinter. 

The Elder One. 

The future assassination of Empress Celene at Halamshiral.

A demon army marching over Thedas, consuming everything it touched.

Dorian very softly told us of who Leliana had become in that world, of Cassandra’s shattered faith and of Varric’s broken hope. Of how brave they’d still been, and how despite it all, they’d each sacrificed themselves to give Dorian and Asala more time. Leliana had sacrificed herself and all Asala could do was watch her die, or doom the world to that dark fate by going to her side.

I knew Asala well enough by then to know that was never an option he considered. I knew from Cassandra’s field reports and Leliana’s spies that had been employed to check up on him in the very beginning all those months ago that Asala was not the kind of man to leave people behind.

But he’d been forced to, this time. Been forced to watch a friend die, and in that manner.

When the story was finished, I leaned back against the War Table, trying to wrap my head around it all, fear clawing up from inside my throat.

And that’s when I looked back at Asala and Leliana, still sitting up against the wall.

Asala wasn’t hugging her as tightly as before, his sobs long since subsided, but every now and then his shoulders shuddered, and in the otherwise completely silent room, I could faintly hear another broken apology muffled into Leliana’s neck.

I’d never considered it before. Not really.

Asala, and Asaaranda too, to a, perhaps somewhat lesser extent, had been all but conscripted into the Inquisition.

They had both readily and completely willingly agreed to join the fight, but before we’d known that they’d do that, we’d all been prepared to make them stay through any means necessary. Blackmail, outright threats, anything.

We’d accepted them into the Inquisition, and piled responsibility and duties on their shoulders. Piled the weight of every life in Thedas on Asala, and I’d never properly considered how cruel that was. We’d been so relieved to have someone who could help, someone who could do what he did. Our Herald of Andraste sent to guide and protect us, aided by a Prophet.

A Prophet whose visions had nearly killed her on more than one occasion, I remembered with a sinking stomach.

There was such a burden on their shoulders. And none of us had ever considered what it cost either of them, before. 

That would change, now.

Asala slowly lifted his head from Leliana’s neck, not quite looking at her as he said, “I’m sorry for. Attacking you like that.”

Leliana’s responding laugh was musical and sweet. “A refreshing form of attack, to be sure. I wish you would attack me like that more often.”

She wiped the last of his tears from his cheeks with her thumbs. “Though I will admit I hope it’s not for the same reasons as this.”

The barest crack of Asala’s usual easy smile broke over his face, something tight and ugly easing in my stomach at the sight.

Asala looked over at the other occupants of the room, a fierce blush coloring his cheeks. “Um. Hello.”

Asaaranda chuckled, maybe a little forced, but it still lightened the room. “We’re up to the part where you and Dorian popped back in from your little time jaunt. It’s up to you to explain the rest.”

I frowned, my gut roiling. “There’s more?”

“Well,” Asala said as he stood, helping Leliana to her feet with ease, “we did go to Redcliffe to secure the rebel mages.”

“And?” Josephine asked.

Asala squared his shoulders like he was preparing for an argument. “I brokered an alliance with them.”

For a moment no one said anything. 

Then, I blurted, “An alliance? They invited a Tevinter Magister to come into such vast power within Ferelden borders that said Magister was able to create and successfully use a type of magic that was previously thought impossible, very nearly dooming the entirety of Thedas, and you’re just going to, what? Let them run wild?”

Asala’s eyes narrowed at me. “There is a difference between letting them run wild without restriction and giving them the proper balance of support, freedom, and restriction. If they-”

I kept seeing flashes of the Circle in my mind. Blood. Lightning. The syrup of the Desire Demon’s touch, the insidious whisper of its voice in my ear, it’s hands on my body, the mages laughing, laughing.

It all mixed with the images in my head from their story of Redcliffe. Red lyrium, demons, blood magic, magisters, old dark magic permeating every wound, a Breach as big as the sky.

“After everything they’ve done?” I nearly hissed, all of those bloody thoughts swirling in my mind, “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I’m not a fucking slaver!” Asala yelled.

The room was so silent and tense you could hear a pin drop. 

Asala scrubbed at his face, letting out a harsh breath, then spat, “I’m not comfortable with controlling how people think and feel and operate, it’s something I want to have any part in!” 

I swallowed around the sudden pounding in my throat of my heart hammering there. “There are other ways-” I tried, but Asala cut me off.

“Mages aren’t monsters waiting to slit everyone’s throats in the dead of night, they aren’t creatures created to cause fear and destruction!” Asala roared, eyes bright with passion. “They’re people, normal people like you and me who’ve gotten caught up in something ugly, who’ve been enslaved in everything but name and physical chains binding them their entire lives, simply because they can use magic.”

My tongue was frozen in my mouth, I dared not speak.

Asala kept his eyes on me. “And _yes_ , some mages have done monstrous things, but they aren’t alone. The Templars have done monstrous things, the Seekers have even done monstrous things. If they hadn’t, do you think Cassandra would be here instead of with them? Blame is not exclusive to mages.”

In the back of my head, I was still thinking about the Circle in Ferelden, of dark shadows and manic laughter and blood and a syrup-thick touch, my heart pounding in my chest.

But he was right. I regretted the intense stance I’d taken with my words, but I didn’t have a chance to apologize.

Now, Asala’s eyes turned pleading, his voice quieter as he implored, “Cullen, you said that you didn’t...that you wouldn’t…”

I realized suddenly that he was referencing an early conversation we had about mages. I hadn’t told him everything about why I distrusted mages as a whole, but I’d admitted my shameful prejudice against them in the past. How that prejudice had blinded me with hate and fear and had caused deaths and hurts that I could have prevented had I not been so selfish.

I’d promised Asala that I wouldn’t let those previous prejudices resurface.

That searching, almost hopeful look in Asala’s eyes faded, his shoulders falling as he sighed and said, bitterly resigned, “I don’t know why I believed what you said.”

That cut deep. Sharp and sudden, an acceptance of another of my failures, and I was too stunned by the weight of disappointing Asala, of failing _him_ , to respond.

Another few long moments passed in absolute silence before Asala lifted his head and addressed the entire room, reminding me that the two of us were not, in fact, alone.

“If the types of decisions I make in the field in the name of the Inquisition are unacceptable or unpalatable to you, then please refrain from putting me in the position to make them in the future.” Asala’s voice was strong as he spoke, but exhaustion colored every line of his body. “I stand by the alliance I brokered. Which, as I was originally going to explain, does not leave them entirely free of restriction. The mages will answer to Grand Enchanter Fiona, who will answer to Asaaranda. No blood magic, and in general and day-to-day they will follow the same rules as the soldiers.”

Now Asala looked back at me, eyes tired but pleading once more. “Let them prove they can handle this. Let them know that the possibility of retaining this freedom, or any portion or form of it relies on how well this alliance goes, both for them and for the Inquisition.”

He started for the door, and I reached out for him on instinct. “Asala-”

I’d gone too far, had let my fears, of magic and of what had happened and what had almost happened to him and of what had happened to me all those years ago get the better of my control. I needed to apologize, I never wanted to see that defeat on his face when he looked at me again.

“Leave it, please.” Asala said curtly.

I snatched my hand back.

We stood there, staring at each other, until Asala looked away, addressing the entire room once again. “Until such time as you name an Inquisitor who will make these decisions, these are the kinds of decisions I will make as an agent of the Inquisition. Now, I’m sorry, but I’m very tired, and I’m going to get some sleep. Good night.”

He was out the door before anyone could respond, guilt and fear mixing in a queasy combination in my stomach as I listened to his fading footsteps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from the Chant of Light


	10. intrigue is poor sport when people are shooting at you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haven is on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vivienne POV

Haven was on fire. The townspeople were running, screaming, children crying, fleeing by the dozens into the Chantry. 

The thatched roofs of the cobbled-together huts that made up the town blazed with dragons breath. The screech of the supposed archdemon rang out as it flew overhead, rattling the ground and shaking souls. 

A grating, raspy rumble of laughter echoed over the hills even as the avalanche descended. 

The difference between Haven and my perfectly respectable villa in northern Orlais had always been viscerally apparent, but now the two seemed so far from each other in situation and similarity it was difficult to believe they existed in the same plane at all.

Asaaranda jumped through the flames, her hands coming down in an arc and sending killing volts through the bodies of enemy Red Templars who’d pinned down a pair of civilians.

“Get to the Chantry!” Asaaranda screamed to the crowd, blood running down from a gash on her forehead, pooling in the catches of her moonlight hued armor, staining her snow-white hair.

Her hands, scarred from battles she’d seen before this one, reached for a babe from a barely vertical civilian, rushing with the throng of them all to the Chantry, guarding them to safety. Her violent violet eyes flashed over her surroundings, ever watchful for those who needed help and those who would prevent her from giving it. The crackle of her lightning zapped along her free hand, where her feet struck the earth, glinted across her teeth like fangs as she screamed.

She was her name, a weapon of thunderstorms made flesh. Rage and retribution, power and control despite the appearance of a lack of it.

The people flocked to her, followed her lead and trusted in her protection, no longer sneaking calculating glances at the proud ram horns, the eerie eyes. Likely, if they made it out of this, they would never look at her like that again. 

The archdemon dragon raced overhead again, screeching, claws tearing through the buildings like parchment.

For a moment, dread filled my heart, as I imagined all of the civilians freezing on instinct, making easy, perfect targets.

And yet, there was hardly a pause in any of them when, from beside me, Asala yelled over the noise, “Keep moving, do not stop!”

The townspeople obeyed. They hardly even paused for a moment before they continued their race to the Chantry, trusting in Andraste’s Prophet and in Andraste’s Herald.

Inquisition soldiers battled hideous Red Templars who kept pouring over the crumbling defenses, popping up everywhere like ants at a picnic. The terror and panic in the air was palpable, and yet the soldiers did not falter, even when a comrade fell beside them, when the Red Templars bellowed and screeched, not when the archdemon let out roars or fire, not even when another echo of that horrible sludge thick laughter came across the ground.

They fought and died proudly, kept their stand as well as they were able, only falling back at Cullen and Asala’s commands.

Trust, again. Complete and total. 

Faith.

Asala was just as covered in grime and blood as his twin, the minuscule and intricate braids in his snow-white hair marred with it. Shards of red lyrium glinted from where they had pierced his armor like so much blood, actual blood pooled and stained among the fabric. Some of the blood was undoubtedly Asala’s despite his insistence at our muttered, insistent questions he was fine, but most of it belonged to the Red Templars, or the injured he physically carried out of danger.

The characteristic easy-going humor and bright laughter was gone from his eyes, instead, his handsome face was curled in a snarl, his hands frosted over with his ice magic, heavy with the weight of lives and trust and faith. Even through the ice, the muted glow of the Mark peeked through.

Civilians and soldiers alike obeyed his words as they rose over the din of the battle, unquestioning, unflinching.

Trust. 

Faith.

All I could think about as we ran from building to building, pulling people out of the fires, from beneath beams, out of the grasp of the Red Templars and demons, as blood and sweat ran down my body and embers fell to scorch my skin, my voice raw from casting, my entire body throbbing with pain and fear and fury, was that there was nowhere I would rather be in the entirety of Thedas than by Asala and Asaaranda’s sides. 

Living with the Inquisition, being a part of the inner circle, was difficult and far from the glamour of the court in every possible way, there were no masks to hide behind here, and my power was only as great as the true quality of my thoughts when I voiced them, and the learning curve for that adjustment had been monstrous. 

But when Asala’s hands glowed white with sickening green coursing through his fingers and into his arm as he used his broad frame like a shield to shelter us, when Asaaranda screamed thunder from her lungs and prophecies from her dreams that carried blood and tears she wore like armor on her skin, when the rest of the circle stood by them, proud and strong and true and trusting and faithful.

It was my place to stand beside them as well. To weave spells between the ones cast by the twins, between the ones cast by Dorian and Solas, boosting, enforcing, solidifying and empowering. To shield Cassandra’s back as she charged, to watch over Varric and Bull and Blackwall, to listen to the manic laughter coming from Sera as she picked off those who dared too close and fight a morbid smile.

A Red Templar got in a lucky shot and caught my right leg in a sweep, sending me crashing to the ground on my back. Even as a spell formed in my hands while the Red Templar lifted his blade high over his head to plunge it into my chest, three longbow arrows sunk deep into the Red Templar’s skull.

“And same to ya  _ mum _ , ugly!” Sera jeered as she came closer from behind me, kicking the Red Templar’s toppling dead weight away from me.

I climbed to my feet, ignoring the throbbing of my body, the pain lancing through my muscles and the shortness of my breath.

Sera met my gaze, her eyes fear-bright but determined and furious nonetheless. “You need a nap, Vivvy?” Sera teased, smiling taut like her bowstring.

A glimmer of sickened red caught my eye behind her and I shot out a hand right over Sera’s shoulder, her hair brushing the bloodied inside of my forearm as I spat out the finishing few words of the spell I still held, shattering the Red Templar sneaking up on her into a thousand pieces.

Sera did not flinch. Trust and faith.

I met Sera’s gaze, said coolly, “What do you think, my dear?”

Sera laughed, delighted, her bloodied teeth glinting in the fire as she strung up another arrow, and the two of us returned to the brawl, covering the backs of the fleeing civilians of Haven, closing ranks with the soldiers against the Red Templar hordes.

They were mine. Mine to protect, mine to defend, and mine to trust.

Trust. 

Faith.

There was nowhere else in Thedas I would ever have rathered to be than beside them. Fighting, bleeding, screaming, crying, sweating, dying. Living.

Even as Haven descended about our ears, the strange urge to laugh came over me. If this demon thought he could break Asala and Asaaranda, he was mistaken.

And we would teach him how wrong he was, we would carve it into the very heart of his black being.

He would not kill us. Could not.


	11. maferath's heart grew cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have to flee Haven, and some are left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cullen POV

Roderick’s head turned, his eyes meeting the young boy who’d heralded our doom. 

“Yes, that,” the boy, Cole, murmured, his eyes searching Roderick’s face before he stood to face Asala and I, continuing in his strange voice, “Chancellor Roderick can help, he wants to say it before he dies.”

Roderick’s fever-bright eyes met mine, that familiar twist of determination to his mouth. “There is a path. You wouldn’t know it unless you’d made the summer pilgrimage. As I have.”

Roderick’s usually nasal but fierce voice was wavering now, weak and thick with the blood that was no doubt pooling in his lungs from his stab wound. But he managed to continue, a grim set to his jaw as he forced himself to stand, saying, “The people can escape. She must have shown me, Andraste must have shown me, so I...so I could tell you.”

Asala reached out to gently brace Roderick as the Chancellor faltered, violently coughing up blood, and Asala asked urgently, “What do you mean, Roderick?”

Cole slipped back under Roderick’s arm, taking his weight. The Chancellor made a grateful nod to the boy, before he tiredly said, “It was whim that I walked the path. I did not mean to start, it was overgrown. Now, with so many at the Conclave dead, to be the only one who remembers…” Roderick sighed, the rasp of it like death’s wings. “I don’t know, Herald. If this simple memory could save us, this could be more than mere coincidence or accident. _You_ could be more.”

Roderick had always been so viciously against the mere idea that the twins could be sent by Andraste, and over the last ten months here at Haven he’d done nothing but spit vitriol at them both over it. But now, to even hint at admitting he could have been wrong about it, about _them_ …

I didn’t have time to comment on it, though, when another great roar from the dragon thundered through the stone walls of the Chantry, shaking loose dust and bits of rock.

Asala looked back at the exit to Haven, where soldiers were ready to bar it shut. Then he looked at Roderick, and then at me, and my stomach clenched, fear clawing its way up my throat at the resolve in his eyes. 

“How about it, Cullen?” Asala asked grimly, “Can you get them out?”

“Possibly,” I grit out, “ _if_ he shows us the path, but what then? What of your escape?”

Asala met my question with silence, that resolve in his eyes joined by fear and sorrow, and I knew.

I _knew_. 

He didn’t think there was going to _be_ an escape. 

Backing up towards the door, Asala forced a tense half-smile. “Keep my sister safe, will you, Cullen? And the rest of them too, alright?”

I darted forward, clutching at his wrist above the Mark, and I couldn’t help but blurt out, “Asala-”

We hung there for a moment, unmoving, just looking at each other.

Words hammered on the back of my tongue, pleas for him to be careful, to be safe, to come back.

_Come back to me._

I swallowed them all back, let out a harsh sigh and gripped Asala’s wrist tighter. “Perhaps you will surprise it, find a way…”

Asala smiled brighter at me. He slipped his wrist out of my hold, his fingers lacing briefly with mine, my breath catching in my throat.

“Keep them safe, Cullen,” He murmured.

Then he, Vivienne, and Iron Bull went for the doors.

Dorian made to follow them, but whatever instinct that had made me reach for Asala kicked in again as I met Dorian’s gaze, and I barely stopped myself from reaching for the Tevinter mage.

Dorian lifted an eyebrow at me, and despite the solemnity in his eyes, his voice was light as he said, “Do be careful traipsing around in the snow, Cullen. Hate to see you replaced for bullheaded carelessness, slipping and cracking open that pretty head of yours.”

I choked out a laugh, barely distinguishable, but the line of Dorian’s shoulders still eased at the sound as he continued on toward the exit back to Haven, and though I wasn’t sure if he’d hear me as I too began walking back towards the other end of the Chantry, I managed a soft, “You be safe, too.” 

Apparently, he had heard me. Dorian froze, just for a moment, but he didn’t have time to respond before Iron Bull called for him to hurry up.

I turned my focus completely to leading the people we had left through the dungeon, through the back of the Chantry and out into the falling snow, listening to Cole’s whispered directions as he carried Roderick beside me. 

An hour later, we had stopped to rest on a plateau over the Chantry, letting the survivors catch their breath for the rest of the journey into the mountains, wherever that would lead us. The plateau also gave us the perfect view of the ruin of Haven.

Even the Chantry was now nothing but rubble engulfed in flame, the fire covering the town lighting up the dark sky for miles.

Half an hour ago, Vivienne, Iron Bull, and even Dorian had safely found their way back to the rest of the survivors, each stating they’d been separated from Asala by the falling ruins and the fire and the Red Templars.

Last they’d heard, Asala was alive. But we weren’t sure of it. Not until-

“There!” Asaaranda called, pointing into the fire swallowing Haven.

Backlit against the flames, in sharp relief, was the dragon, and the clawed demonic figure who’d appeared next to that thrice-damned Samson.

And Asala. His huge figure was a clearly outlined smudge, cornered against the last remaining trebuchet, and it didn’t look like he was holding his staff any longer.

Weaponless.

My heart lodged itself in my throat, as I watched the dragon and the creature close in on Asala.

“No!” Cassandra yelled, jerking Asaaranda back away from where she’d started to run back towards the ruins. “You cannot leave!”

“He needs me!” Asaaranda yelled back, turning away again.

“We need you, too!” Cassandra tangled her fingers in Asaaranda’s armor, holding fast.

Asaaranda turned away from her with a noise of heartbreak and fury I hoped I’d never have to hear again, staring out at her brother’s figure against the flames.

Somehow, Josephine found her way to Asaaranda’s other side. Josephine wove her fingers through Asaaranda’s, tear tracks and soot clear on her face.

A great yell came from Haven, Asala’s voice rising over the low roar of the fire and the whooshing of the falling snow and the wind. Even though the words weren’t understandable, we all stood, silent, watching Haven as the smudged figure of Asala kicked out at the last standing trebuchet, firing off at the mountain above.

The dragon screeched down below, the rumbling of the collecting avalanche joining in the cry.

Dorian stepped up beside me, a hand pressed to his mouth, tears falling freely down his cheeks.

I ignored the blurring of my own vision, the wetness on my own cheeks in the chill of the wind, watching the avalanche fall on Haven, on the remaining Red Templars, the dragon and the claw-handed creature escaping over the other side of the mountains back the way they’d come.

As the bulk of the falling snow and rock fell on Haven, the fire extinguished in the crushing weight of it all, Asala’s smudged figure falling along with it all, a hand reached out to curl around mine.

With the choked sobs and cries of the survivors around me in my ears, with Asaaranda’s whispered pleas pounding against my heart, I wound my fingers tighter over Dorian’s. I looked out over the wreckage, the avalanche that continued to fall, the last screams of the dying army being buried in the snow, and wondered what in the Maker’s name we were if Asala wasn’t with us.

Asaaranda tilted her head back to the night sky and screamed, her eyes glowing bright like purple flames, tear tracks thick on her face.

Josephine and Cassandra caught her as she seized up in pain, and Solas was immediately there with one of the rescued mounts, the exceptionally large Tirashian Swiftwind hart that favored Asaaranda. 

“Come,” Solas said, his usually stoic voice thick and cracking, “we must keep moving. Let’s get her mounted.”

There was nothing else for us to do. Haven was gone, a blizzard was stirring, and Asala was-

Within three minutes, the survivors had gathered up what we’d dropped in our grief, and followed the hart carrying Asaaranda’s unconscious form, Solas leading the animal and therefore the rest of us into the heart of the mountains.

Through it all, my fingers stayed laced with Dorian’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is a Chant of Light verse


	12. to valiant hearts sing, song-weaver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Songs sound different here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Josephine POV

I’d never been this exhausted in my entire life.

Playing the Game in the court of Orlais prepared you for a great many things, and quite honestly I was probably the only individual in Thedas who had the proper mix of credentials, personality, and connections for the occupation of Ambassador for the Inquisition. Leliana had said as much when recruiting me, of course, and I was already well aware of my own abilities and talents. 

Abilities and talents that, while vital to the Inquisition, could do nothing for them right now, as we shivered in our makeshift camp deep in the Frostbacks. An ambassador was about as good as a lead brick when it came to traversing dangerous territory.

But under these circumstances, I should have been much more useful than I was feeling.

When we’d all stood there above Haven, watching Asala stand and then  _ fall _ , what seemed the whole of the mountain falling on him and the ruin of Haven, burying the twice war-ravaged Valley of Sacred Ashes, there had not been a word said. There was nothing  _ to  _ say, after that. Our Herald was dead.

So we kept moving. In fear of the demon general, of Samson, of the Red Templar army, of the dragon who’d razed our fledgling settlement to ash, we kept to the trail only Roderick knew. Though I had seen many of the soldiers, the civilians, or even those of us closer to Asala than the others, looking back towards Haven for long moments. I’d caught myself doing the same, praying to Andraste that I’d see his horns peak over the hills behind us, that he’d made it back safe the way he should have.

But we had to keep moving, so no one got to look very long. We stopped as often as the pack animals and the other mounts and animals needed to stay limber and agile, leaving a trail of campfires behind us. After hours of marching in knee-deep snow, climbing higher and higher through the mountains until the air was so thin I was almost sure we would soon reach the heavens, Cullen called for a true camp. To rest and properly bandage the wounded.

To regroup. Figure out what we were going to do without our Herald.

As soon as the stakes for the tents had been forced through the frozen ground, Asaaranda had grabbed a torch and her staff and swept into the night to go back to look for her brother. 

Nothing any of us said even slowed her step, not even when Cassandra and I had begged her not to leave.

She’d only looked at us, that anger in her eyes breaking into grief. “Please,” she had begged, “I can’t leave him out there. I have to see for myself.”

She’d refused the help of some of the soldiers who had asked to go with her, to protect the twin we yet had left, as well as to recover their own dead. Asaaranda had refused that as well, quietly reminding them that the survivors needed them more than she did.

For three hours, in the wake of everything that had happened, it seemed that all Cullen, Leliana and I had done was argue viciously with each other over our next move. The words and accusations we had flung at one another, the cruelty in it, borne of our grief and broken hearts and broken homes.

Finally, as we stood over the rickety wooden table with the threadbare map of the Frostbacks someone had produced from somewhere, panting angrily at each other, Cassandra had said firmly, “We must go get Asaaranda. Leave this for now. We can speak more of it later, can we not?”

We’d agreed. Then Cassandra, Cullen, and a regiment of soldiers went to retrieve our Prophet. They had hardly been gone half an hour when the rear lookouts ran back to the camp, waking everyone.

“He lives!” They screamed, racing through the camp to spread their message. “Andraste and the Maker have blessed us, the Herald is alive!”

He was. Bruised, bloody, injured to be sure, unconscious and half-frozen from his mostly solitary journey after us, but breathing. His heart beat strong and true, and he  _ lived _ .

As Mother Giselle had tended to him in the tents, Leliana, Cullen and I resumed our argument, somehow both better and worse now that we knew Asala lived, was safe, had kept us safe. 

Asaaranda had been forced to intervene and tell the three of us to calm ourselves, to not dare speak to one another like that. She’d exiled us to sit and breathe for a minute, clear our minds. In the silence while we did, Asala emerged from the tent, looking haggard and exhausted, his eyes searching the sky, maybe for divine guidance. It wouldn’t be the first time I had done something similar.

Then, Mother Giselle had followed him, and begun to sing. 

It had been too long since I had sung my prayers, longer still since I attended a proper Chantry service. Yet as we all joined in her song, I could not remember hearing a more beautiful prayer, or one that held more meaning in this time and place under the stars.

One by one, soldiers and spies fell to their knees before Asala to show their fealty, the civilians pressed their hands over their hearts in respect, their voices twining together, rising over the snow, into the air. 

It hit me quite suddenly, looking at it all, the ringing of so many voices in my ears, the images of what we’d all seen flashing through my mind.

From the flashing fire and hearing a mighty dragons screech, to the softly falling snow crushed by bent knees and joined voices rising in the snow and stone, hope in the face of desolation. Loyalty, allegiance, trust. In the Inquisition, in Asala.

Asala  _ was _ the Inquisition. 

And we had all known it all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is a Chant of Light verse


	13. wounded i fell then, death for me come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen did NOT overreact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cullen POV

The headache pounding between my eyes was the least of my irritations as I stood behind my desk, glaring at the paperwork towering on the surface.

A few choice curses floated in my head. Paperwork would kill me faster than anything I’d faced back in Kirkwall. Well, almost anything.

“Now quit that pouting, Commander, or when they carve your statue a hundred years from now to commemorate your efforts in this noble quest, that pout will be the only thing they remember of you!” Dorian quipped from his perch in a creaky chair near the bookshelves, a small smirk twisting his mouth. 

I narrowed my eyes at Dorian. “I do not pout.”

Dorian laughed, warm and velvet, somehow reassuring despite the fact that he was laughing at me. “I didn’t say it wasn’t a particularly fetching expression!”

I huffed, rolling my eyes, even as Dorian laughed again.

Things had settled, somewhat, since Haven fell. Now that we were at Skyhold, solid stone walls surrounded by sheer mountainous cliffsides replacing rickety wooden barriers and sloping hills leading into a valley, the foundation of the Inquisitions holding was better than ever before. 

If only it had not come at such a cost.

We’d lost a third of our forces at Haven, and almost a quarter of the civilians. Better numbers than we originally feared, as our forces were not so vast to begin with and the odds we faced seemingly insurmountable, but too many all the same. Much too many.

Luckily, of the previously orphaned children, or even those who had still had one or both parents after the explosion at the Conclave who’d stayed with the Inquisition in Haven simply for the fact they had nowhere else to go, all had survived the trip to Skyhold. No child’s body lay dead under snow and rock and ruin. A few were sick, one frighteningly so, but through the efforts of the surgeons and the twins, none were expected to die of their illnesses.

And that was something, and at times when the rest of my failures threatened to drown me, it was almost enough. 

There were fifteen such children, of ages from infancy to thirteen, and all were now orphaned, with no blood parents left between any of them, orphaned either by the Conclave or by Haven. And with the rest of Thedas still in violent upheaval and in some places outright war, Skyhold was the safest place for them. So they stayed.

Since arriving in Skyhold, Asala and Asaaranda had both been under strict orders not to exert themselves too much for the next three weeks, and to preferably stay abed for the next week. 

Neither of them had obeyed those orders.

The first day, Asala had been caught attempting to help the construction workers stabilize the walls. The second, the two of them were caught in the surgeons' encampment, passed out cold after exerting themselves too much while healing those wounded soldiers. The look in the injured soldiers' eyes as the twins were carried away, gratitude and fear and pain and perhaps a little bemusement was priceless. They’d gotten into similar trouble over the next two weeks, disappearing out from under Josephine’s careful watch and turning up in places doing things that, while helpful, they were certainly not supposed to be doing.

Last week, after a run of five days where Asala had slipped away in the morning not to be seen again until dinner, he was discovered by Leliana in the Skyhold kitchens, washing dishes with the scullery maids.

Leliana had railed into him for worrying her, and if the story was to be believed, the head cook, misunderstanding Leliana’s anger at her new mysterious and helpful yet quiet kitchen aid, wearing a contrite and possibly somewhat fearful expression, had put herself between Asala and Leliana and berated the spymaster for insulting her new dishwasher.

The story had made its way around Skyhold so many times that the details were muddled, but the gist of it was that someone, either Leliana or Asala, then had to explain to the angry cook that her new dishwasher was actually the Inquisitor. 

Morale improved massively every time a story of one of the twins exploits in avoiding bed rest made their way around the castle, delighting Sera to no end in the tavern and confounding Maryden on how to include these efforts in song.

Finally, Vivienne had suggested over breakfast that the twins be tasked with looking after the orphans until the healers gave them clean bills of health. That had actually worked, and although the bed rest order had been lifted a month or so ago, every now and then one of my soldiers would swear to a comrade that they’d seen the Inquisitor working in the kitchens again.

That was another lingering effect of Corypheus’s attack on Haven, my listening like a thief for any mention of the twins or the others. The inner-circle clung tighter to one another than before. Myself included. Breakfast with the twins and the entire inner circle was something that happened often, now. I didn’t often make it, preferring to start working from the moment I woke up, but there were other ways that the new preoccupation with one another’s whereabouts and status manifested itself. 

Josephine often sent messages through runners in Skyhold to the inner circle, requesting one or multiple of us take lunch or tea with her. Sera popped up out of nowhere to poke at one of us for several minutes before getting bored and running off again, though never before she pressed close and hugged tight. Blackwall, at breakfast or whenever he ‘happened’ to run into us, would press a small carved wooden trinket into our hands. I’d seen him somewhat awkwardly do so to Leliana before gently tapping the underside of her chin with his knuckle like a doting uncle, prompting one of the brightest, truest smiles I’d seen Leliana give since Haven.

Solas made his rounds more quietly, asking if there were yet lingering wounds of body or mind he could help tend. In my case, Solas hadn’t even asked, instead insisted we play a game of chess. When we’d risen from our chairs, the throb of the wound from a Red Templar’s blade on my right thigh had vanished, and when I looked to Solas in surprise, he simply smiled at me.

Vivienne had burst into the War Room one day and insisted she be given full authority over the Inquisition uniforms and other nonsense related to Halamshiral. She was given it easily, but her shoulders relaxed in a curious way when she had tossed a comment over her shoulder on her way out of the War Room about ‘not seeing the Inquisition shamed for their dress at Halamshiral’. Vivienne was terrifying and powerful, her skill set fully developed in its focus on survival in the Orlesian court. She was the only one with a skillset so devoted to it, and though I would never in a million years mention it to her, I deeply appreciated her determination to protect us in the ways she knew best.

Bull and his Chargers were a fixture, they offered exasperation and the certain feeling of safety in equal measures. They prompted drinking games, loud singing both in the tavern and even outside of it, and with Varric they dragged even perfect strangers into wild games of Wicked Grace. They offered a relief of the worries we all carried on our minds.

Much like Cole, who I was sure I didn’t remember the number of times I had seen him properly, and perhaps that should have worried me much more than it did. If I had still been a Templar, the same person I had been in the Ferelden circle, I would have cut him down without a thought. The very idea of that gave me chills now, when I looked up from a report somehow feeling better than I had when I initially turned to study it, or when a slightly dented, somewhat clumsy bouquet of snowdrop flowers found their way to my desk.

Leliana sent notes almost every other waking hour, expecting replies every time, and I had no idea when she slept. Perhaps she didn’t. The haunted, grave expression she wore now troubled me deeply, but it troubled me less when she let Asala pull her into a tight hug, take her worries for a moment, or when I looked out of the narrow archery windows of my office to see the shallow balcony outside Leliana’s rotunda from my desk, gratefully watching her spies press soothing hands to her burdened shoulders as they took notes from incoming ravens, gave her jokes that made her laugh as they sent ravens flying into the wide world. 

The twins seemed to have developed a routine where each of them saw all of us at least once a day while they were at Skyhold between missions, even just to pop in to say hello and then goodbye. Asaaranda spent more time with my soldiers than she had before, and I held the way the soldiers talked about her in the barracks with awe and respect close to my heart. It was hard to ignore the new scars on her hands from how she’d called down too much lighting, or the way her eyes glowed brighter now and how sometimes if she was certain so one was looking she rubbed at her temples and grit her teeth against the pain of her now constant headaches.

Asala had always been tactile, clapping shoulders, pulling people into his great bear hugs, and now it had seemed to multiply infinitely. The orphans could constantly be found climbing all over his body like a tree, swinging from his arms and clinging to his legs, peals of laughter falling from their mouths and chasing away that dark shadow in Asala’s eyes. With us, Asala’s easy confidence might occasionally falter, showing his uncertainty and his fear, but he never hesitated to ask for our thoughts and opinions, and he never left Skyhold now without a goodbye embrace to those not going with him. I’d never been fond of such open familiarity between the commanding ranks before, but it was impossible to resist the way he seemed to draw you in, the way his body seemed to cradle mine perfectly, warm and solid and sure.

“Did I lose you there?” Dorian asked, startling me from my somewhat warm thoughts. 

I had forgotten the conversation entirely.

Dorian’s mouth curled fetchingly as he teased, “Who knew that flattery was all it took for our great Commander to fall silent and blush like a schoolgirl?”

Dorian had also not been excluded from the inner circle’s new preoccupations. He seemed to enjoy bringing a stack of books around to read as he gave his thoughts on their contents, his sharp tongue more often than not startling laughter out of me.

As I turned to reply with something devastating as soon as I’d conjured it from my thoughts, an Inquisition scout and one of Leliana’s people came through the door that led to the kitchens and darted out the right-side door to the battlements.

“How quaintly rude,” Dorian remarked, voice colder, “Is it often that others use your offices as a shortcut?”

In spite of myself, I felt the corner of my mouth tick up, and Dorian raised a sardonic brow in response.

The usual murmur of voices, movement, and sparring from outside, muted by the stone walls of my office, was broken by a cry of “Bull!” from a heart-stoppingly familiar voice.

Dorian’s face was as drained of blood as mine felt, a matching terror in his eyes that was pounding in my blood. 

“Asala!” Dorian cried.

As the two of us rushed through the door towards where the cry had come from, now accompanied by the sound of actual fighting, not just sparring, I turned my head over the battlements to yell, “Insurgents! To the Inquisitor!”

Iron Bull and Asala were fighting off a group of six, all wearing Inquisition uniforms, a grey-green mist emanating from their daggers.

I drew my sword as Dorian muttered a spell under his breath, and we joined the fray. 

It was over almost as quickly as it started, when just as two full battalions thundered up onto the ramparts in various states of armor and improvised weaponry, Iron Bull threw two attackers off over the edge.

One saboteur moved to stab Bull in the back, and I lashed out with my sword, cutting the attackers head clear off. 

“Stop!” Dorian screamed, something rippling from his voice like a spell, and for a moment, everything did.

I dared not even breathe. Or maybe I just didn’t need to.

In that frozen moment, I saw the fight clearly.

Asala’s ice-covered hands caught mid spell at one attacker, though another had snuck up behind him much like the first had done to Bull, a dagger raised high to glint in the sun from its position to be plunged into Asala’s back.

Bull had turned, was reaching behind me for something, or, rather, some _one_ , I realized with dread as I thought about that nagging feeling of my unprotected back and the last of the six attackers. Two had gone over the walls, I’d killed a third, Asala was in the midst of killing the fourth while the fifth was poised to kill him, which left only one.

Movement, sound, momentum and time returned in a rush. Asala’s spell reached the saboteur in front of him just as the purple-black flame I knew was Dorian’s reached the attacker behind Asala, engulfing the pretender in flame so hot he did not have time to scream before he was ash. I let the returning momentum of my thrust to kill the attacker behind Bull pull me forward, ducking down and out of the way as Bull roared, his fist connecting with the last of the attackers, the punch shattering his skull and splattering its contents.

Then, for another moment, all anyone did was breathe. Waiting for perhaps another attack, for something else to come. But that, apparently, was it.

Bull was the first to speak, spitting on the body of the man who’d attempted to stab me, hissing, “Ben-Hassrath assassins. Morons.”

A small ripple of laughter came from the, oh.

The two full battalions standing in various states of armor and arms on the stairs to the battlements, proverbial raised hackles now relaxing.

That was the biggest lingering effect of Corepheus’s attack on Haven. When one of us was in danger, we tended to react...viciously.

I stood, and tried not to flush at the evidence of my alarm, addressing the soldiers, “That was a perfect response time, men. Thank you for your state of readiness. Now, back to work.”

One of the Captains, Taylor, called over the crowd, “You heard the Commander, back to work!” 

With only minimal grumbling about abandoned duties, they obeyed, eyes lingering on Asala as if to check that he was whole.

Before I could do the same, I noticed something strange. 

Usually, wherever Dorian or Bull went they grated against the troops, the men sometimes spitting foul names at the mage or the Qunari.

This time, however, there wasn’t even so much as a dirty look at either of them, and it hit me like a blow to the head when I realized why. All of these soldiers had watched a Tevinter mage and a Qunari mercenary save the lives of their Inquisitor and their Commander.

I was almost grateful to whatever or whoever ordered these insurgents to attack. This had worked out much better than time and constant vigilance over the men’s opinions while surreptitiously trying to expose them to Dorian and Bull’s honorable deeds ever had.

Asala nudged his boot against the leg of one of the dead men. “Bull, what the hell is going on?”

Bull sighed deeply. “It’s a Ben-Hassrath thing. Just them making sure I know that I’m definitely Tal-Vashoth now.”

A strained smile crossed Bull’s face. “Tal-Va- _fucking_ -shoth.” 

A minute passed, where none of us said anything. The regular noise of the blacksmith, the murmur of the soldiers and pop-up marketplace, of the training going on on the other side of the enclosed inside grounds slowly built back up to their usual noise level.

“Yeah,” Asala said, a strange, determined glint in his eyes. “You’re Tal-Vashoth now. Just like me. Like Asaaranda.”

“Boss,” Bull sighed.

“No.” Asala snapped, marching over to stand close to Bull, a veritable storm in his eyes. “You did something honorable by choosing not to needlessly sacrifice lives. You realize that, don’t you? If you had done what they wanted you to, if you’d let the Chargers be killed, you’d be no better than the type of men you hunt. You’d be like the men you hate in Serheron.”

Bull’s eyes flashed at that, anger twisting his face, but only for a moment.

Asala laid a hand on Bull’s shoulder. “You’re not alone. You have the Chargers. You have me. You have Asaaranda, the Inquisition, you have _us_.”

I didn’t know the full extent of what was going on, though I knew that Asala, Bull and the Chargers and recently left Skyhold for a joint operation with the Qunari out of Par Vollen, and when they’d come back the Chargers had stuck a little closer to Bull than they had before, Leliana only saying that any chance of an alliance with the Qun was gone.

Bull studied Asala for a few long moments, before he sighed, his massive shoulders relaxing, like he was letting something he’d held too tight for too long go.

“Ok,” Bull said quietly, “ok, boss.”

Asala pulled him in for a tight hug. Blushing, I looked away.

Dorian had wound his way back to my side, but he was frowning at the stairs to the battlements. 

“Something wrong?” I asked him.

“Not one insult!” Dorian hissed at me, surprisingly vehement.

I let the statement stand for a moment, but when I couldn’t derive the meaning, I asked, cautiously, “What?”

Dorian spun dramatically to face me, planting his hands firmly on his hips. “I know your soldiers watch themselves and their words carefully around you, but even so! Not even a _single_ naughty word about my heritage as they stomped back to their duties!”

Oh. Dorian had noticed that too, then. 

“Would you prefer they insult you?” Bull asked, grinning at Dorian from where he and Asala had finished their hug.

Dorian scoffed. “They didn’t insult _you_ either, you big lummox.”

“And that’s...concerning you?” I asked, fighting a smile.

Dorian rolled his eyes, strolling back to my office. “When you’ve spent as much time as I have acting as society’s metaphorical black sheep and suddenly people won’t even insult you, you’d be concerned too.”

For extra flair, Dorian slammed my office door as Bull roared with laughter and Asala and I smiled, though I suspected that was a pleased smile I saw on Dorian’s face and not a concerned frown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is a Chant of Light verse. Full verse is 'Wounded I fell then, by grief arrow-studded, Never to heal, death for me come'


	14. ariantaam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's been some new arrivals at Skyhold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bull POV

“Boss?” Krem’s voice came through the door of my room. 

“Come in!” I yelled, still strapping on my boots.

I sincerely hoped that the Chargers weren’t about to try to rope me into going with them on another outing into the mountains with the orphans. The last time I hadn’t warmed back up for an entire day.

I looked up as Krem slipped into the room, frowning. 

I resisted the immediate urge to demand a reason for the expression, promise vengeance on whoever had caused it. 

Instead, I casually asked, “What’s up?”

Krem’s frown deepened. “There’s a merc band approaching. Led by a Qunari. Thought maybe…”

Krem shoved a hand through his hair but didn’t finish the sentence. 

He didn’t need to. Krem knew I was still on edge about what had happened on the Storm Coast with the people from Par Vollen, and though it wasn’t unusual for merc bands to just show up at the Inquisition, Qunari were still a rarer sight among them than the twins’ existence, plus my own I guessed, might suggest. Krem was giving me a heads up that there was a possibility something else might be going down.

I grunted at him, quickly finished getting dressed, and grabbed a couple daggers to slip in the waistband of my pants and in the tops of my boots. I didn’t want to walk around in full kit, didn’t want to spook anyone if that wasn’t what was going down, but it never hurt anyone to be prepared.

Krem eyed me as we walked to the battlements, and I could tell he wanted to say something, but he didn’t, just kept pulling his plump bottom lip between his teeth.

I ignored the usual shot of arousal from the sight. Krem had a nice mouth, but he’d had plenty of time to offer or take me up on my subtle-er than usual offers. I wasn’t about to ruin the great thing we had going by, well. Ruining him.

We had a great view of the open space of the inside grounds from the place we stopped on the battlements, Dalish melting out of the shadows to stand by my other side. I didn’t even question it, glad that her and her ‘bow’ would be around for distance fighting, should it come to it. 

The arriving mercenary caravan finished pulling into the inside grounds, the two wagons battered enough that the markings on them were all but erased, the frames barely holding together. 

The company wasn’t just led by a Qunari, it looked like a whole company of Tal-Vashoth, my muscles tightening in readiness as I cataloged weapons, likely skill sets, builds, the many visible injuries and the-wait.

Not just Tal-Vashoth. Elves, dwarves, and humans, too. One, no two humans, three Tal-Vashoth, four elves, and three dwarves. One of the elves was heavily pregnant, ready to pop pregnant. The Qunari who’d been leading the caravan into the grounds reached for one of the elf’s hands to help her down from the wagon when suddenly another elf I hadn’t seen came around from the other side of the front wagon.

Wait.

“Holy shit, that’s a Grey Warden,” I whispered, shocked. 

I’d honestly thought Blackwall was the last of them, and we’d find a whole field of Grey Warden skeletons in Corypheus’ backyard one of these days. 

“Huh,” Krem marveled.

The Grey Warden elf, a tiny thing, especially standing next to a heavily pregnant elf and a towering Qunari, was also a mage if the staff strapped to her back meant anything.

Dalish hummed thoughtfully, “Here’s hoping she knows what’s what,”

Before I could question what, exactly, Dalish meant by that comment, the doors to Skyhold’s main hall flew open, the heavy, solid ironbark crashing against the stone walls.

The courtyard went silent. 

Asala and Asaaranda were standing at the top of the stairs to the main hall, shocked expressions evident even from the distance I was to them. 

Then, suddenly, Asala let out a delighted ‘whoop’ and Asaaranda laughed, the two of them calling out something that sounded like ‘Enna’ as they raced down the stairs and out into the lower courtyard toward the mercenary group.

I made the connection then. “This must be Shokrakar and her band.” 

“Oh,” Krem said, his shoulders instantly easing in relief. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

I trained my ears on the still nearly silent courtyard as Asala and Asaaranda reached their old mercenary company. Asala lifted the Grey Warden elf straight up into the air, still laughing despite the vehement and exceptionally loud cursing coming from the woman as he did so, though I noted she seemed to hug him right back. Asaaranda went for the Qunari who’d led the caravan and the heavily pregnant elf, giving a salute to them, calling out loud enough for the courtyard to hear, “Shokrakar. Halani.”

So it was Shokrakar. 

The Qunari woman bowed her head, and I realized with a jolt of genuine fear that no, her horns weren’t just at an odd angle, they’d been sawed off.

_Shit._

“Maker’s fucking ballsack,” I whispered.

Like Asaaranda’s, Shokrakar’s voice carried a little. “I’ll keep this simple. I’m exhausted, we’ve been hunted by those fucking nobles, Halani’s due any day, and we’ve got a lot of reason to hate that asshole Coryshit.”

“Corypheus.” Asaaranda offered, amused.

“Whatever.” Shokrakar drawled, and I noted the grins dotting some of the soldier’s faces at the blatant disrespect for the demon. Shokrakar pulled the pregnant elf in a little closer to her, and asked, “You have some room for us? We’re willing and able to work.”

Asala and Asaaranda answered together, “Always.”

Whatever spell held over everyone watching seemed to break then, as the mercenary company started unloading their wagons, everyone else returning to their duties or other occupations. 

Dalish leaned out over the battlements, studying the company, and whistled. “They look like fun.”

I laughed, watching the mannerisms, the familiar sort of attitudes I’d seen in my own men. When they met the Chargers, there’d probably be a bloodbath. One of the fun variety, of course, but still.

Maybe Asala’d finally let us hunt down that dragon in the Hinterlands, or the one on the Storm Coast...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ariantaam is Qunlat: ari prefix denotes leadership antaam meaning body like in war


	15. to my children venture carrying wisdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leliana writes a letter to a long-lost friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its a letter, but kinda Leliana POV

Dearest Aedan,

As is usual, I do not know if these letters truly find you, but since my ravens come back healthy, if tired, and without these long missives, I choose to believe they do reach you and it is only your stubborn decision to exclude me from your troubles that keeps your silence.

At any rate.

In my last letter, I told you of our survival of Haven, and that we’d found an old fortress high in the Frostbacks. Skyhold. That was our first night here, and the months that followed have been...busy, to say the least.

The refugees from Haven are settling in, even those that never were and still aren’t officially part of the Inquisition. There were a lot more survivors than there could’ve been, if Cullen and the twins had not been as quick to rush to the rescue.

Speaking of Asala, I believe I told you we planned to show him the room Josephine had allocated for him once it had been cleaned and furnished, which it was the day after I’d sent my last letter. Honestly, the room is nothing too large, no walls inlaid with gold or anything like that, though with the way Asala protested you’d think they had been. Of course, since he’s the Inquisitor, he should be given the best room in the castle, it sends the complete wrong message if he is not, but he raised one hell of a fight over it. Kept insisting he’d be fine quite literally anywhere else.

I still don’t know how she did it, but Vivienne had tea with him and he moved in that same day. I think it’s possible I am better off not knowing the exact words she used to get him to agree.

The survivors took the gossip of the incident well, the barracks with the soldiers were positively jovial that night with the news. Leaders who show reluctance to take comforts their subordinates are not afforded give those same subordinates comfort. 

We had only been here perhaps a month when Asala and Asaaranda’s old mercenary band came through the gates. I mentioned they had been captured and tortured by nobles in Orlais, and we learned that some of them did not survive long enough to be rescued. They looked like they’d been through hell, clothes and armor tattered and covered in dry blood, most of them injured to some degree. Their leader Shokrakar, among other injuries, no longer has her horns. The rescue teams we’d sent out for them, following that horrible vision of Asaaranda’s back in Haven, had of course sent reports they had found them tortured, but the depth of it somehow managed to take me by surprise, seeing it in person like that. In the torture devised for her, Shokrakar’s horns had been sawed off.

I suppose it was meant to be a dehumanizing effort, but Bull has since informed me that among the Qunari, those born without horns are revered, and those whose horns have been broken or taken off are feared more than most, especially among other Qunari. I believe I can understand that. The stud of her horns certainly leave a vivid image, and in battle will instill the barest impression of her strength and perseverance to attackers.

Their injuries and their weary and bloody state wasn’t even the most dramatic part. Shokrakar and her band were led here by a Grey Warden. I doubt you know her, since apparently she has only been a Warden for two years, but she’s quite fearsome for such a small thing. On the off chance you do know her, or know of her, I will include a description. She’s an elven mage, slender, dark-skinned with black hair and equally black vallaslin. If it weren’t for the familiar armor of a Grey Warden battlemage, I doubt she would have been let through the gate by our soldier’s admittedly jumpy temperament these days. 

Still, she makes only the second Grey Warden I have seen in the last two and a half years. I have spoken of it before, but since you disappeared on whatever mission you are pursuing now, the Wardens have all but vanished from the lands of Thedas. Despite my eyes and ears, I had only found Blackwall, and now Ina. That’s her name, shortened from her full name Ina’lan’ehn, which she rolled her eyes when explaining that it meant beautiful in elven, much to Solas’ disapproval of her dismissive tone. 

At any rate, their arrival to Skyhold was very dramatic. First, Shokrakar with her broken and bloody horn roots, the rest of the mercenary band in a shambled state of battle survival, and one of the elusive Grey Wardens, all just showing up at a castle that is not quite yet on most routes known to Thedas.

Ina has shed some light on the situation with the Wardens, though I cannot tell you what I know in a letter I cannot guarantee will reach you, and she has shown surprising vehemence about never returning to the order. I once again pray you are safe and whole, and remain untainted by the rumors of things I have heard concerning the Wardens. I pray you remain yourself.

For the most part, morale is still somewhat low. After Haven, it’s much higher than one should expect, but still. The people are tired, angry, mourning, morale threatens to plummet somedays, and yet.

It’s a habit that reminds me of you, my dear Warden, but Asala and Asaaranda have a habit of walking around among the Inquisition, not even just with the inner circle or the other higher-ranking officers. They like to check in with everyone here. It seems Asala knows everyone at Skyhold by name, and more than once have I found him working alongside the kitchen maids washing dishes, or with the construction crews restoring the castle, and tales have reached my ears of the refugees seeking comfort from their Herald, and of him freely giving it.

Even if I was not spymaster here, and wasn’t privy to nearly everything that is said and done within these walls and much done outside of them, I would know simply from how they look at Asala how much they love him. He’s not even just their Herald anymore, not since he rose from his supposed death at Haven. He’s something more now. 

Like you, again, I suppose. Like Hawke, as well, who Varric has finally written to for his intervention. Cassandra will be furious when she discovers Hawke is the friend Varric spoke of bringing to Skyhold to consult with on Corypheus.

I simply hope it is not too late. For a lot of things.

I mentioned that there were a lot of survivors from Haven, and there were. Fortunately, we’ve lost none of the children that resided with us, though a few got sick on the journey here. One of them was life-threateningly sick until Asaaranda personally raced to get proper herbs from a Dalish clan she met in her mercenary travels. There are fifteen children here at Skyhold, and unfortunately, all of them are now orphans, after the Conclave and Haven.

We cannot send the children away. Orlais is in the midst of a bloody civil war, Ferelden is besieged with rifts and demons, and the rampaging Red Templars roam all over Thedas. They are safest here, and so for now, here they stay.

It’s actually been very pleasant. The air here at Skyhold seems to positively drip with the fury and the fear and the grief of the survivors some days, so for the dreariest of these to be cut with the sound of their laughter? It is a blessing, truly. 

The entire inner circle now cares for them, in a rotation of whoever is here and available from our other duties.

Vivienne is the favorite of the two quietest children, Reasha and Nasir, who had to be wrenched from the hands of Red Templars in Haven. Though they are yet very small, they will sit with her as she writes or studies her tomes, and draw pictures for her. She keeps them on her desk, and one of my people notes that she looks at them every night before she sleeps.

Iron Bull is every child’s personal playground. The adore using him as a stepladder, clambering atop his horns, holding on to either one and proclaiming they are ‘riding the Bull’. The first time one said so, completely innocent of the possible meaning, one which I am certain Bull has personally used in his amorous affairs, it was in front of Mother Giselle and Bull almost suffocated in his laughter.

His Chargers are surprisingly adept at child care, as well. When they are here in Skyhold, in the mornings they take the children up a little higher into the mountains, not too far from Skyhold as a security risk, but far enough the children feel free, and they hold snowball fights and build snow houses. The children always come back elated and exhausted, and the Chargers always fall into their seats at the Herald’s Rest tavern, groaning that they will never do it again. And yet every morning they are at Skyhold, they gather the children up and do it again.

Sera will often go with them, but after a few...incidents when she was left alone with the children, she has to be chaperoned when she’s among them, now. There were pranks. Josie was not pleased, and there remains a lewdly shaped stain on the headboard of the bed in the guest quarters that were assigned to Ser Virgil of Coffton. Perhaps next time the good Ser will think twice about his determination to call Asaaranda an ox.

It’s often a struggle to get the children to eat, bland porridge does not an enticing meal make. Thank the Maker for Blackwall and Varric. The two of them are capable of working wonders with the children at mealtimes. Blackwall especially seems quite comfortable around them, though I often catch a glimpse of a certain look in his eyes. Something to think about.

Varric is one of the children’s favorite’s in general, of course, especially at bedtime. We hate to think of these children being deprived of the normalcy of bedtime stories, and Varric was the first to volunteer for the duty. Cassandra, of course, objected on behalf of his very colorful style, but he assured her he’d tone it down for them. 

He has, if only just. 

Speaking of Cassandra, for all of her discomfort around the little ones, after they lure her into playing their games, she falls into the role very well. Varric told the children a little of the Pentaghast family history, and now Dragon Slayers is a popular game among them. It would be a shame if she never has children of her own. I’ve seen many sides of Cassandra over the years, some that not even she is fully aware that I have, though I’m sure she suspects. It is heartening to see her smile again, at least. 

Solas is also requested for storytelling, but he is no longer allowed to tell them stories at night. Stories of the wonders of magic, of the history and the dreams lost in the Fade get the children too excited, it seems. They adore his stories, and he adores answering their endless questions.

The children often find Dorian in the library and ask him questions as well, though Dorian shows even more discomfort among them than Cassandra. I don’t think children run so free in Tevinter. I must remember to ask Dorian about it. Regardless of his unease, and despite his frilly attempts to disguise it, it is clear that he does adore them. I often find him putting on little magic shows for them during rainy days. Just swirls of sparkles, a quiet little snowfall indoors, nothing dangerous. Children are fascinated by magic, and both Dorian and Solas are all too willing to show them there is nothing to fear.

Beyond the impromptu magic shows, a child will occasionally find their way to his corner in the rotunda and curl up with him in his chair. 

The first time it happened, Carver came to me in a panic, fearing for sweet little Adora’s life essence. “Surely he will suck it from her in her sleep with his evil Tevinter blood magic!” Fine, those were not his _exact_ words, but the meaning was the same.

Needless to say, Adora survived. Dorian, however, went around looking quite poleaxed for the next week. Josephine and I had a good laugh about it.

With all of our duties, Josephine and I don’t see much of each other, and Josephine is unable to spend as much time as she would like with the children. I have caught her giving the children those confounded chocolates and pastries and other delicacies ‘gifted’ to us by nobles wishing to curry favor without committing actual resources. She also arranged all of their lessons with tutors from almost every corner of Thedas seemingly overnight. Even I am unsure how she got them to Skyhold so fast. I suspect Varric, possibly Sera, most likely mercenary contacts from either Iron Bull or the twins.

Of all of the inner circle, I was most worried about Cullen’s reaction to the children constantly being underfoot. His withdrawal is weighing on him like an anchor round his neck since Haven, and I feared the children would have a negative effect. Quite the opposite. He is unrepentantly adoring, and it does his soldiers morale well to see their Commander yelling at them during sparring practice while juggling a toddler and a seven-year-old, both of whom are also repeating whatever he yells. The children often play Commander and Soldiers as well, now. The Chargers are only too happy to join them in this game, and we had to instill a rotation for who got to play our dearest Commander.

The twins and Cullen always seem to be with one or more of the children while they’re here at Skyhold, and the three of them have become very skilled at juggling children’s conversations with their duties running the Inquisition’s forces, or in Asaaranda’s case the mages. 

Someone, I think Varric though I have not yet confirmed it, also told the children of my background as a bard, and since then I often find myself begged by the children to sing for them. I haven’t sung very much since, well. Probably since you stopped sending letters. The melodies seemed to have abandoned me, and even hearing them in the tavern was unbearable. It’s not so bad anymore, though the pain of some of the memories still lingers, and I can manage a few tunes for them. 

I do miss you, old friend, sometimes more than I can bear. I pray these tales of children bring some light to your darkened days, at least as much as they have to those here.

They have had an especially profound effect on some of the soldiers and some of my spies that are no longer cleared for fieldwork, for physical or...other reasons. They’re still with the Inquisition, still proud and determined to do their part, but if it wasn’t for the children I am almost sure that we would have lost more than one of them to the dark of their inner depths. Cullen and I assigned these men and women to protect the children, whether they are on an outing with the Chargers, running about at play in the gardens, or sleeping in their cots. It gives the children assurance of their safety, and our soldiers purpose and drive. What more precious task is there, than to protect a fledgling life?

Despite our best efforts to keep these children from further harm and pain, their dreams are still haunted by demons and threats. It’s not every night anymore, thank the Maker, but it is still too often when I get a report that one of the children needed to seek out the twins at night for comfort and sleep. To their credit, neither Asala nor Asaaranda have ever turned a child away. I only wish that it was not necessary. I wish that none of this was necessary.

I would apologize for the length of this letter, for the contents to all revolve around the children, but I find my spirits lighter today with this subject. I am penning this letter in the gardens, watching the children play Hide and Seek with the Chargers. Mother Giselle thinks no one can see the way she hides her laughter behind her hands, but I see. It is good. The dreary clouds of grief and sorrow would overwhelm this place without the laughter of these children, and I am grateful for it and for them, however selfish of me that may be.

I see Krem sidling up beside me. He is hiding something behind his back, I wonder if Sera blackmailed him into trying to prank me. Just a moment.

It was no prank, surprisingly. I looked over this letter and I did not mention it here, but perhaps I have in the past. Either way, I shall tell you, perhaps again, now. Krem sews small stuffed nugs for the children, usually with leftover scrap fabric the seamstresses and armor weavers here cannot use. Vivienne even provided him with an entire bolt of Orlais’ finest velvet for these nugs. He gives them to the children, toys to replace the ones lost at Haven, for though they are gifted other toys by the soldiers and others in the Inquisition, the nugs seem to have taken on a unexpected level of comfort for them. They are unquestionably the children’s favorites, and I have found myself wishing for one of my own.

You know how fond I am of nugs, after all.

Do wipe that feigned disgusted look on your face, Aedan, I know you secretly find them adorable as well.

Krem has just gifted me one of those very nugs. Mismatched, slightly lopsided, and all-together even more adorable with the way Krem blushingly, stutteringly, tried to sell me on the gift. I thanked him for it, and promised to cherish it. I fear he will still be blushing tomorrow.

I wish I could sit and speak more, but this letter grows long, and I have duties I must return to.

I miss you, Aedan. Every day, my dearest friend. 

I miss the lighter days when we traveled together, and though I write to almost all of our former companions, I miss them still, almost as dearly. Alistair, Zevran, Wynne, sometimes Sten and Shale. I do dearly miss your Marbari, the sweet old thing. And surprisingly, yes, sometimes I miss Oghren. 

Not nearly as often do I miss Morrigan, but occasionally questions will arise in our magical studies here that remind me of her, and make me think she would be of use, even welcome here. I often wonder about her.

Just as I wonder about you, though my worries for you are far more profound and come far more often. 

Whatever the sacrifices, personal and professional, that I have made, whatever scars have been etched onto my skin and onto my mind for me to come to be here at Skyhold in this moment, I am grateful for them. I am glad of them. It is a good and right duty to cherish and protect these children’s futures, to shape the world for them. 

I had a good teacher for such aspirations, if you remember. 

I miss you, Aedan, and though I do not dare hold hope for a response after all this time, I do hope these letters find you and lighten your days. I miss you.

Wherever your current travels take you Aedan, please stay safe, and come home soon. 

All my love, 

Leliana

P.S. Oh yes, I nearly forgot my usual request. When you do come home, please put our dear King of Ferelden out of his misery and marry him. It is about time, and I tire of waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is a Chant of Light verse


	16. to battle they charged, none to return to the lands of their mothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inner-circle plays Wicked Grace in Herald's Rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra POV

“No, Seeker, Drakes are low this round,” Varric chuckled, and I suppressed the urge to snarl at him.

It was my suspicion that he switched up the rules just to trip me up in the game. I would not put it past him.

Cullen frowned at his own hand, eyes flicking between Varric and a too-pleased Josephine. “I, ah, thought that Drakes were high this round?”

“Last round, my dear,” Vivienne intoned before she turned back to her murmurings with Solas over magical theory, holding her cup out for Dorian to pour another glass of wine from the bottle they viciously refused to let anyone else drink from. 

Cullen grumbled to himself, and Cole, sitting beside him, tilted his head curiously. “I didn’t know the Maker had those.”

Cullen blushed bright red from his chin to his hairline.

Sera cackled, “Had what, creepy?”

The previously cruel nickname had none of the vitriol it had had four months ago, and I spotted a twitch in the spirit's mouth before he announced to the rest of us at the table, “I didn’t know the Maker had a moth-eaten girdle.”

Sera and Bull shrieked with laughter, I rolled my eyes in my effort to fight my smile as Cullen hissed, “Cole, _please_.”

It was rare that the entire inner circle was able to gather together like this for the evening, what with one or both of the twins off traipsing about Thedas in constant danger, three of us with them at all times to protect them and their all-too-eager to be in danger ‘for the greater good’ thick skulls.

But tonight all of us, even the recent addition of Ina, crowded around the table shoved into the corner of Herald’s Rest, and played Wicked Grace. 

Varric’s mysterious ‘friend’ was due at Skyhold any day, and if it was who I thought it was I would absolutely _kill_ Varric, Halamshiral was six months from now and preparations were beginning in earnest. I’d already dodged appointments with Vivienne and her increasingly harried seamstress from Val Royeaux, and was dreading them demanding I wear a dress. Not that I would agree, I just hated having the argument over and over again. 

Ina raised a sharp eyebrow at Sera. “Creepy?”

Sera’s laughter stopped immediately. “You got a problem with ‘im?”

For all her bluster, it seemed Sera was protective of him.

Ina shrugged easily, unbothered by Sera’s vicious question. “No. I’ve actually heard worse nicknames.”

Varric pressed a hand to his chest. “That hurts, o’ beautiful one. I’ve tried my best to give you a good nickname and you’ve shot me down every time.”

“If they were any good,” Asaaranda giggled, the sound shivering down my spine, “she wouldn’t have objected.”

Sera laughed again at Varric’s sputtering, and whatever tension might have developed vanished again without a thought. 

From beside me, Blackwall shifted uncomfortably. 

Hiding a smile, I asked loftily, “Is there something wrong, Warden Blackwall?”

Bull snorted into his ale.

Blackwall sent a truly poisonous glare my way, though the twitch of his beard gave away his humor. “Nothing worth bothering you about.

“No, by all means,” Leliana crooned, smiling wickedly, “your comfort is our top priority. At least, in your state.”

Blackwall had lost his pants to my hand two rounds ago, and I was still perversely proud of the accomplishment. 

The man merely shook his head at the spymaster, his shoulders quaking with repressed laughter even as he kept squirming in his seat. 

Dorian’s precise kohl-lined eyes latched onto the Warden. “I think I feel a draft. Do you feel a draft, Blackwall?”

“Fuck all of you,” Blackwall muttered, reaching for his ale.

“That’d be quite the accomplishment,” Asala replied mildly.

Iron Bull lifted his hand up high. “I volunteer to go first.”

“Ugh,” I wrinkled my nose.

Varric, dealing out new cards, pointed at me. “Ah! Drink, Seeker, that noise is off-limits for another two rounds.”

Josephine’s golden laugh spilled over my skin like warm honey, and even as I cursed the shot I was obligated to drink, my heart sped up at the sound.

I hadn’t felt this happy among others in ages. This free or safe. 

It was difficult to believe the difference between now and that of over a year ago, at the Conclave. Time may not completely heal all wounds, but it certainly did help, it seemed.

A few rounds later, the rest of the tavern well and truly alive beyond the bubble of drinks, cards, and laughter we’d found ourselves in, Josephine’s smile and Asaaranda’s glittering eyes becoming increasingly distracting to me, I pulled a story card.

“What now?” I asked Varric.

He smiled at me, “Your choice, Seeker. Pick someone at the table, and ask them to tell a story about something.”

It was a foolish, tipsy desire to be closer to her that had me turning to Asaaranda and asking, “What happened to your parents? You never speak of them.”

The twins and Ina all three suddenly went still, smiles vanishing.

The rest of the table sobered some as well, Vivienne and Dorian’s quiet albeit pointed discussion of fashion while Solas was forced to listen ceasing at the change in mood.

Asala cleared his throat. “It’s, ah…”

When he failed to finish his thought, Asaaranda did. “It’s not exactly a pleasant story to hear.”

For a moment, I almost feared I had gone too far, asked too much.

Then, Ina put her small hand on Asaaranda’s. “They’ve been with you through worse, have they not?”

The twins looked at her, then at each other, some understanding passing between them borne of a type of silent language shared between close siblings I’d known once, and would never have again.

Asaaranda sighed, looking at the table. “I will tell you, if you want to listen, but as I said. It is not a pleasant story.”

The table was quiet, pondering this, when Sera of all people said, “Sometimes it’s ok to tell stories that aren’t fun.”

Leliana’s eyes were sharp on Sera, who met them unreservedly and shrugged.

As one, we turned to Asaaranda in an unspoken request to hear.

She sighed again, rubbing her hands over her face. “Alright. Here we go. The short answer is that they were murdered by Ben-Hassrath, when we were ten.”

Bull’s grip went white-knuckled on his tankard, some indecipherable emotion in his eyes before it was gone in a blink. Yet he did not protest or claim even the possibility of it being deserved kills the way he might have before. He simply sat, waiting.

Asaaranda took her cue from that, straightening in her chair and leaning out over the table so we could hear her better. “We were born in Rivain, actually. Some no-name village near the coast around Seere. Our parents had left the Qun together, went to live honest lives as farmers. I don’t know what they’d done for the Qun before, but. They were happy. We were happy.”

She trailed fingers over the scarred wood of the table. “It just so happened that our village was too close in relation to Par Vollen, I guess, and someone in our village slipped word of a Tal-Vashoth family with a mage to them. For retribution, coin or favor, I don’t know.

“Your mother or your father?” Vivienne asked, voice uncharacteristically soft.

“Neither,” Asala answered, his eyes fixed on his sister.

Asaaranda let the comment stand for a moment, looking right back at him. Then, she continued, “Asala and I had our magic from a young age. We didn’t really know what it was, and our parents knew we’d never survive with the Qunari, and the Circles would kill us before they’d help us, so our only option was to just. Stay with our parents. It was fine, at first. They taught us not to mention it or use what we could do around other people, and we wanted to make our parents proud, so we obeyed.”

With a strained, hollow laugh, Asala murmured, “And then I ruined it.”

“Enough,” Asaaranda spat, voice sharp as a blade, eyes pointed as she glared at him. “You were ten, and it was-”

“It was a foolish, braggart decision.” Asala insisted.

“What was ‘it’?” Solas asked.

Asala bit at his lip, letting out a slow breath. “It was our mother’s birthday. We were having a celebration with some of our parent’s friends, and the week before I’d come up with the idea to grow her a flower from a seed while she watched.”

Vivienne hummed, blinking in that manner she had when she was impressed with someone. “A kind gesture.”

“A stupid one,” Asala insisted, “seeing as I did it in front of everyone at the party. I didn’t understand why everyone…”

I’d heard sad tales of children in far-flung villages who showed off developed magical powers. The retribution was often swift and cruel in equal measures.

Asaaranda swept her hair over one shoulder, fingers tangling in the ends for a distraction, though she picked the story back up. “Three weeks after the party, our mother woke us up in the middle of the night, gave us a packed rucksack, and gave us to a fearsome Qunari woman decked out in full armor, wielding a two-handed axe.”

“Shokrakar,” Bull said.

Asaaranda nodded. “Shokrakar. Our parents were crying, terrified. Mom told us something was going to happen and we needed to go away for a while, but if we went with the lady, if we behaved, in a week everything would be all right again and they’d come for us.”

Dread filled my stomach as I thought about it.

“Well,” Asaaranda said, “a week passed, just the three of us, two Rivaini kids and a Ferelden Tal-Vashoth camping in the woods a three days hard walk from the village. Our parents didn’t come. Asala and I had this stupid, stupid idea to just go back ourselves since Shokrakar refused to take us. So one night, we waited for Shokrakar to fall asleep, and we left.”

That dread in my stomach spiked.

Asaaranda’s voice was tight with old grief. “We walked into our childhood home and found it destroyed. Furniture broken, dishes shattered, our things strewn about everywhere, and our parent’s bodies decaying on the floor.”

I could almost hear the shockwave that rippled through the rest of us at those words. Cole began rocking back and forth in his chair, and I watched Sera reach behind Cullen to place her hand just so on the back of Cole’s chair, so his shoulder blade pressed against her thumb, the tension in the spirit’s frame easing at the touch.

Asala was staring, unseeing, at his cards. “We didn’t understand what we were even seeing at first. And just when it had dawned on us, the door burst in behind us, Templars flooding the room. They’d been watching the house, since they’d gotten the tip about apostate Qunari too. They took us in for questioning.”

“Questioning?” Cullen asked, his voice raw, “For what?”

“Apostasy,” Asaaranda answered blandly. “We didn’t see each other for three days. They were going to...well.”

Asaaranda shrugged, a ragged breath masquerading as a laugh escaping her. “I don’t know what they were going to do. Then, all of a sudden just like how we’d first seen her, Shokrakar broke us out in the middle of the night, packed us up on one of the Templar’s stolen horses, and we didn’t stop running until we’d reached Ostwick.”

The table fell silent for a long while, processing.

They’d been ten years old, younger than some of the children they now cared for. I had lost my parents as well, but not as viciously as…

I felt ill.

Asala straightened, shrugging. “Living with Shokrakar wasn’t so bad, actually. She didn’t care that we had magic, and though when she was younger she held on to a lot of the Qun, despite being Tal-Vashoth, that all mellowed as we traveled together. She isn’t actually all that much older than we are, maybe only ten years. So as we grew up, she taught us to talk like she did so no one would know we weren’t from Ferelden, she built up a mercenary company, earned a name for taking in Tal-Vashoth, apostates, elves, dwarves, humans, whatever.”

Vivienne shifted in her seat, her face thoughtful. “You've said before that the two of you are mostly self-taught.” 

“Mostly,” Asaaranda said, “We learned through magic books we stole or bought or traded for when we traveled, and we never ever did anything without the other of us knowing. Shokrakar asked us to keep the magic stuff secret for a while until the Templars' search died down, and we did. Back in the beginning some of the Tal-Vashoth she worked with were more...traditional about Qunari mages.”

Again, my eyes darted to Bull, only to find him with an odd expression on his face.

Asala rolled his shoulders, stretching out the muscles, saying, “As they either left or died out, though, more accepting people came into the mercenary group. Ina came to us when she was, what, fifteen?”

“Fourteen,” Ina drawled, rolling her eyes. “I was fourteen, the two of you were fifteen. One too many mages, you know the story. I’d been there first, but I pissed off our keeper when I told him I didn’t want to marry his son, so he kicked me out.”

“Ugh.” I couldn’t help the noise as it left my mouth, but it won me a brilliant smile from Ina.

“I know, right?” She laughed. “But it was good. The twins and I have been mates ever since.”

“For a while,” Asaaranda said, frowning in thought at the ceiling, “there was this former Enchanter of a circle who traveled with us and taught us all some things, mostly about form in battle, some other things you can’t learn by yourself or from books. But by that point, we’d done a lot of it on our own.”

“An Enchanter?” Vivienne’s voice was sharp, and I was ready for some disparaging comment before she utterly shocked me by merely asking, “I wasn’t aware that Reginald had survived his ousting from Hercinia.”

“His ousting?” Bull asked, mouth quirked.

“Yes, my dear,” Vivienne said cooly, rearranging her cards. “The city is known for frequent pirate raids, you know, and he was ejected from the Circle when it came to light that he had an...indiscrete relationship with a self-proclaimed pirate lord.”

Sera’s jaw dropped. “Wait. You know Reggie?”

“ _You_ know him?” Asaaranda asked incredulously, at either Vivienne or Sera, I didn’t know.

Both Sera and Vivienne ignored her. 

Vivienne looked Sera right in the eyes and answered, “But of course, my dear. He may have been a floozy but he made the finest handcrafted peculiarities in Thedas, they’re very distinctive.”

“Peculiarities?” Cullen asked cautiously. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Sex toys!” Sera answered delightedly. “He made those toys for buggering someone even when you’re half across Thedas! Vivvy how do you know about them?”

Vivienne’s face was stoic as always but a ghost of a smile curled her lips as she answered, “Who do you think the Empress entrusted the duty of obtaining one for her?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is a Chant of Light verse


End file.
